I was passing the Indian grocery store and noticed they had an advertisement on the window for Butter Chicken Nuggets, which got me thinking along the lines of flavoured nuggets. Some years ago we were staying in Sydney and went to see Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ at the Opera House. Being in a large cosmopolitan city we thought rather than rush our dinner we would get something on the way home, as there would be something open for sure. Big assumption as it turned out – choices were pretty much limited to Hungry Jacks and the like. Not wishing to spoil the evening we waited until we got back to the hotel and ordered Indian from room service, notably Butter Chicken. It was absolutely beautiful, but without going into detail lets just say ‘The Tempest’ turned out to be an apt description of the after-effects.

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Near to where I work there is a small store run by a Korean couple where I often go for lunch. They offer a selection of Korean and Japanese food including the Korean classic Bibimbap, sushi, cold rolls and various options of stir-fry style dishes made while you wait. All the food is really great and the sushi is really excellent, but by far my favourite, which I have often, is Lime and Mint Chicken.

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Pizzas have invaded the world and their appeal seems to be almost universal. There’s really nothing not to like about the bases, and the versatility of being able to use virtually anything that appeals to you as the topping means there’s a pizza out there for pretty much everyone. They are ridiculously easy to make and if you can’t be bothered making the bases pre-made ones are readily available to buy, or Lebanese bread can be recruited to the task. You can even chuck a leftover slice in your lunchbox to eat the next day. All in all they seem to be almost the ideal food.

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Becoming a parent turns most of us from rational, honest people into lying, cajoling and bribing individuals with a host of associated questionable behaviours. We lie to children about all manner of things, including the fat red man, the chocolate delivering member of the Leporidae family, and that dog that went to “stay on a farm”. Food in particular seems to bring out some of the worst examples, probably because children can be such picky eaters, which fuels our irrational fear they will starve to death or become an axe murderer or have some other grisly fate befall them. The story of space pie is one such example.

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If you google the term ‘banana popularity’ you will get a heap of results informing you that bananas are the most popular fruit in the country of the website’s origin, including the UK, USA and here in Australia (putting aside for a moment that bananas are not technically a fruit, and a lot of other fascinating detail). As well as their massive popularity, bananas are a relatively delicate tropical fruit with a short shelf life, meaning that recipes aimed at using up over-ripe bananas are commonplace, and like bananas themselves the most popular of these recipes is banana cake.

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