My sister-in-law recently returned from europe. she very kindly brought me a present, which I adore. It is a cookbook written by richard olney titled Lulu\u2019s Provencal Table.<\/p>\n
Richard Olney has been somewhat of a food hero of mine for as long as I have been interested in food. In fact, the first cookbook I bought was a book edited by him; Terrines, Pates and Galantines. I purchased it in the early 1980s while at Melbourne University. I should have been studying economics, but this book was far more interesting. It was a hardback and covered the basics of transforming meat and game into the most wonderful looking pates and terrines.<\/p>\n
Looking back, I could not have chosen a more inappropriate book to start a culinary career. There was no doubt it was inspirational, but the techniques were advanced and way beyond the sort of cooking I had attempted. Most of the recipes required ingredients that were almost impossible to find \u2013 duck livers, pork fat, caul, venison just to name a few. The dishes were cooked in a terrine mould that was not readily available at that time.<\/p>\n
Thirty years on and the explosion in cooking has meant most of those items are now quite easy to find. The store I frequented in Melbourne for terrine dishes and moulds was Scullerymade in High Street Malvern. It opened its doors in 1978 and is still going strong. I used to window shop its marvellous copper moulds and cooking utensils mainly imported from France. What I didn\u2019t know at the time was much of what excited me about cooking came from Provence and was written about extensively by Richard Olney in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Born in Marathon, Iowa, Olney was educated at Iowa University and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York. In 1951 he moved to Paris to pursue a career as a painter. His passion, however, was always food. He bought a small, dilapidated house above the village of Solli\u00e8s-Toucas that he restored over many years. At the same time he taught cooking, wrote on food and wine and produced his masterpiece, Simple French Food in 1974. He lived a solitary life without radio, television or computer but was incredibly well connected to most of France\u2019s greatest winemakers and restaurateurs. He died in 1999, leaving a legacy of classical food and wine writing gastronomic feast for the senses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My sister-in-law recently returned from europe. she very kindly brought me a present, which I adore. It is a cookbook written by richard olney titled Lulu\u2019s Provencal Table. Richard Olney has been somewhat of a food hero of mine for as long as I have been interested in food. In fact, the first cookbook I […]<\/p>\n