Test your design IQ
MANILA, Philippines – Who is the Australian chef and television personality known for promoting his homegrown cuisine worldwide with his The Best in Australia series on the Lifestyle Channel?
Cooking for him is both a passion and a reflex. It’s something he’s done since childhood and it never ceases to give him pleasure or stimulate his imagination. He unequivocally believes that food should be simple and distinctive, technically and culturally correct.
He discovered his passion for food when his family moved to Perth when he was 10 years old. After finishing school, he got a job in the Rottnest Restaurant as a kitchen hand. This was for him the perfect scenario — surf-work-pub. There was great camaraderie among the chefs, and he found that he had a talent for cooking.
Abandoning his plans of attending a teacher training college, he worked at Jojo, a busy fish restaurant in the Nedlands. He then worked for the award-winning Jessica’s Fine Seafood restaurant in Perth, the highly acclaimed Goodfellas restaurant in the trendy Newtown area of Sydney, and the über trendy Tribeca restaurant in Double Bay, Sydney. He went to the UK and worked at the River Cafe before moving to become head chef at the exclusive Monte’s Club with Jamie Oliver. He then worked as head chef at the famous Atlantic Bar and Grill, and helped Oliver Peyton win the contract for the National Dining Room at the National Gallery with his creative and seasonal menus.
He co-presented a BBC2 10-part primetime series called The Best in April 2002 with an accompanying BBC book of the same name. He also filmed an eight-part food and travel series for the ABC in Australia called Surfing the Menu with Curtis Stone. Initially shown in the UK and Australia, this series has since been aired in 26 territories. He finished filming the fourth Surfing the Menu series in New Zealand in 2006.
After 13 years of living in the UK, he returned to Australia, and has just finished filming the brand-new series The Best in Australia based on the hit BBC series. This shows his journey in sourcing and cooking the finest, freshest ingredients from all over Australia and New Zealand.
Today, he is the creative director for food for The Great Australian Pie Company. He also writes a regular column for Olive magazine and for Delicious magazine in Australia. His latest cookbook, Outdoor: Grill Your Way Around the World, was released in October 2008.
Cooking for him is “50-percent confidence, 40-percent passion, and 10-percent technique and skill. Be brave and eat anything because experience is everything.”
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Last week’s question: What is the name of the structure pictured in last week’s quiz?
Answer: Sydney Opera House
Winner: Herbert Alincastre of Malolos City
Text your answer to 0905-3142614 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1950, 634-1943. Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
