dining all'aperto at la svolta Posted by Helena

Everything at La Svolta was delicious. I ate it all! That’s enough of a review, right? Okay, probably not. Read the full one over at The Modern Con.

I can personally vouch for the beef and tuna tartares, prosciutto with deep fried pizza dough (just as yummy as you think it is), the seared tuna and the chickpea and capsicum salad (how can chickpeas be so yummy with so few ingredients?). A special mention must be made to the Nutella pizza. The base was some kind of combo of puff and chewy pastry and the Nutella was so thick it stuck to the roof of your mouth. Heaven. Seriously.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s the best Italian I’ve had since I visited Italy and was raving about it for days afterwards. I’ve already told my friends we’re adding it to our Must Eat At List. It had a really nice atmosphere and nursing a glass of bubbly, I ended up making friends with the other ladies at my table. In fact, we’re going to brunch next week!

My new friends are: Sandra and Stina from Klaus and Fritz (Stina is also gold and grit photography) and Olivia who's probably the most famous Instagrammer I know and her sister Steff

La Svolta, 3-5 Cecil Place, Prahran and 450 Hampton St, Hampton.

ballin' good time at smithballs Posted by Helena

Photograph by ALP Photography.

I was lucky enough to attend the launch of Smithballs for The Modern Con. Check out my write up here.

sausage making class // hudson meats Posted by Helena

Last month I went to a sausage making lesson for The Modern Con. Have I even mentioned that I write occasional pieces it? Oh well, here goes! It was originally published here.

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Going to a sausage masterclass there’s quite a lot of obvious jokes to be made, but let’s just ignore them all okay? (PENIS! Okay, sorry, that’s out of the way now.)

Hudson Meats opened in Surrey Hills in 2007 and it has finally made its way to Melbourne! Located in Tok H Centre on Toorak Rd, you can buy anything from dry aged beef, pork from Byron Bay, Barossa chickens and Spanish jamón, to pickles from Brooklyn and my favourite carême pastry.



Micah Hewitt, Manager and Butcher, was our fearless leader for our sausage masterclass and he showed us how to make a traditional pork and fennel sausage before we attempted to make our own.

Hewitt opened with “fat is flavour!” True that. For sausages, it’s good to use meat that’s 20% fat to 80% meat. Pork is great to use because its fat melts at a higher temperature than beef for example, so it doesn’t all drip out of the sausage when it’s cooking.

Step 1. Take 1.5 kg of pork and add salt.



Step 2. Add whatever you like! We had (left to right) pepper, garlic, fennel, parsley and chilli flakes.



Step 3. Start mixing together with your hands until the mixture starts to stick together. You can feel the texture change and it starts sticking to your fingers.





Step 4. Feed the pig’s intestine (I know, it was a bit gross and felt really slimy but at least it’s a la naturale!) onto the nozzle of the sausage maker.





Step 5. Get a friend to put pressure on the mince going in the top and start to crank the handle slowly and gently guide the sausage as it comes out. (Really trying to refrain from making some truly bad puns.) The casing should be full of mince, but still have enough room so you can twist them into smaller sausages later without the casing bursting.





Step 6. Tie off the casing and TA DAH! Sausage. These is actually the ones I made. The guys offered me a job until I found out how early I’d have to wake up in the morning.



I had a lot of dinners with sausages and they tasted darn good. So much more flavour than a regular store bought sausage. I’ve already visited Hudson Meats before and highly recommend them for any kind of delicious food stuffs. The guys are all really friendly and if you wander in without knowing what you want for dinner like I did, they’ll definitely be able to help you out.

Visit Hudson Meats at Tok H Centre, 459 Toorak Road, Toorak, 3142.

ladies who lunch // ledbury Posted by Helena

I've got a few more posts to make from, erm, last year (whoops!) and here's one of my favourites. Everyone who knows me knows I love my food and as a special treat to myself before I left London (literally the day before I left), I went to The Ledbury for a long lunch. It's only the 14th best restaurant in the world doncha know. Now... Let me relive the best meal of my life (not kidding - every dish was amazing).



Goats curd on squid ink cracker

Cheese and bacon brioche - this was mind blowingly amazing and I had to stop myself from eating all of the bread every time they brought the bread tray around.

Amuse Bouche - quail egg on mousse (was it mushroom?)

Ceviche of hand dived scallops with radishes, seaweed and herb oil and frozen horseradish

Flame grilled mackerel with avocado, celtic mustard and shiso - one of my favourites!!

Hampshire buffalo milk curd with saint-nectaire, Iberico ham and a broth of grilled onions

Fillet of brill with sweetcorn, razor clams and ginger - this was another favourite!

Breast of quail with walnuts, cepes and figs

Short rib of ruby red beef (cooked for 8 hours) with baked celeriac, bone marrow and grated english wasabi

Pre-dessert - somewhat like a mandarin Eton Mess. Mandarin granita and ice cream and meringue yum yum yum.

Mille-feuille of mango with kaffir lime ice cream.

cloud control // on tour in hobart Posted by Helena

So... I kinda went on tour for 24 hours. Half of the reason I went to Hobart was to see my friends play another gig and hang out with them some more. I texted Laura, one of our friends back in London, with some silly snaps of us and she said, "Helena, are you on tour?!" I guess I was! Not unlike when I was on tour for 24 hours with Laura's band Tigercats in Barcelona. 24 hours is my tour limit. I'd had very minimal sleep the night before I flew to Hobart and then another night of minimal sleep since we were up until 4am.

Cloud Control's second album Dream Cave is out now, and they're playing at Laneway Festival next year!

day trip // werribee mansion Posted by Helena

My housemate's parents came down to visit and we did a little day trip to the other side of town to take them to Werribee Mansion. I've since realised that this is where The Genie From Down Under was filmed - only my favourite ABC show ever (Rhys Muldoon was cute)! It's really quite beautiful and we were getting a definitely Downton Abbey kinda vibe from the upstairs/downstairs exhibits. We wandered through the gardens where I fell in love with the greenhouses and then popped to lunch at The Park Hotel, purveyor of craft beers.