Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: Australia

  • All About Australian Wine

    Most Americans are familiar with Australian wine.  Ask any person with average wine knowledge what wine comes from Australia and they’ll tell you, “Shiraz.”  Of course, many other varietals are raised there, but Shiraz (the same grape as Syrah) is the most popular wine grape grown in Australia and it is responsible for making Australian…

  • The truth about Vegemite…from an American foodie

    If you show this bottle of Vegemite to 10 Americans, half of them won’t know what it is.  Out of the remaining 5, four of them will recoil in abject horror and begin dry-gagging, while the remaining 1 will say, “Oh, I love that stuff on toast!” Show that same bottle of Vegemite to 10…

  • Kangaroo Loin with Mushroom Sauce

    **PLEASE NOTE**  A video on how to make this dish is located at the bottom of this recipe! Yes, yes…you’re shocked and a bit disgusted that I’ve posted a kangaroo recipe.  Folks…kangaroo is the venison of Australia.  It’s their most common game meat.  It jumps into the road in the middle of the night and…

  • New Year’s Traditions

    I’ve been very fortunate to have traveled broadly in the last 14 years, and I’ve spent quite a few New Year’s Eves abroad. I’ve spent it in Thailand, where everyone sprays everyone else with water…you have to leave your cell phone and personal electronics at home, because, as a Westerner, you get DRENCHED with buckets…

  • Australia, part 1

    Greetings from Sydney, Australia! I’m sending this on Friday morning at 10:00am, but for most of you it’s 5:00pm on Thursday. J-P and I flew here yesterday after just barely escaping a big ice storm that practically shut down the DFW airport just a few hours after our plane departed. Our flight from Los Angeles…

  • Australia, part 2

    So we just spent a lovely day in Sydney, doing all the quintessential Sydney things… I stripped naked in front of the opera house and got a fantastic Butt and Scarf photo. We strolled through The Rocks, a collection of the oldest buildings in Australia. We took the ferry to Manley, Sydney’s beach town, and…

  • Australia, part 3

    I’m sorry I haven’t written in three days. It’s not because I haven’t had access, a connected computer has been sitting next to my bed the entire time. It’s simply because these Aussies live a RIDICULOUSLY hedonistic lifestyle, and we’ve just been caught up in it all. After our long day in Sydney, we wanted…

  • Australia, part 4

    This one will be short, but I figured I’d better bash off another before we head off to New Zealand, where our time will be short and we probably won’t have time to write… This morning we had coffee at the house of a man named Killer. He’s an automechanic, and I was a bit…

  • Australia, part 5

    Greetings, all! J-P and I are safely back in Dallas, about a week earlier than expected. Due to a number of reasons, we decided to cut out the New Zealand portion of our trip, and headed straight from Perth to Hong Kong. On the way we flew right over the interior of Borneo/Sarawak, one of…