Use your noodle to get by

FOOD Detective is not sure how she made it into her 20s given her negligible cooking skills when she flew the nest at 18.

Elizabeth Hewson, author of Moving Out ... Eating In

FOOD Detective is not sure how she made it into her 20s given her negligible cooking skills when she flew the nest at 18. She thought separating eggs meant keeping six in the fridge and six in the pantry, and regularly used the smoke alarm as her kitchen timer.

Many years later, little has changed on the domestic front, and Detective can relate to American comedian Rita Rudner who said: "I read recipes the way I read science fiction. I get to the end and think, 'Well that's not going to happen'."

Things might have been different had Detective left home clutching a copy of Moving Out ... Eating In (Roc-Hin Pty Ltd, $34.95), an inspired guide for home leavers comprising tips on everything from pantry essentials and what kitchen equipment you need, to how to test whether a whole chook is cooked and what flavours work well together. Detective's experience of flavour combining back in the day ran to opening the little sachets that accompanied her Two-Minute Noodles and pouring them into the boiling water, so she'd have loved the inspiration to whip up the likes of potato rosti with chorizo salsa and fried egg ("My cure for a giant hangover," says the book's author Elizabeth Hewson), fishcakes with homemade tartare sauce and fennel salad ("Great for feeding four on a budget") and sticky ginger beer and date pudding with salted butterscotch sauce. Self-taught cook Hewson dreamed up the idea for the book after her own disastrous moving out of home experience, when she spent all her cash on takeaways, gaining eight kilos in the process. Detective feels her pain, and thinks her lovely new book is a vast improvement on the usual cheap volumes aimed at teaching homeleavers to cook, themselves enough to drive the young and hungry to the nearest KFC.

ANOTHER book that might be popular with home leavers is the new Coca-Cola: The Cookbook (Hamlyn, $19.99). Who knew the world's most famous soft drink, first sold from a soda fountain at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886, could be used in recipes other than that childhood favourite, the Spider? Everything from French onion soup and braised beef casserole to banana loaf and muffins incorporate a splash of the venerated drink, of which more than 18 billion servings are sold each day. The compact release provides a history of Coca-Cola, including its early advertising campaigns, the slogans, the famous faces who've promoted the product (Joan Crawford, Elvis Presley) and the changing shape of the bottle over the years. Perhaps the most famous recipe ever to incorporate the drink, Nigella Lawson's rather good ham baked in Coca-Cola gets a guernsey too.

DETECTIVE accepts that with so many cookbooks out these days, it may be difficult to think up a title that has not already been claimed, but she wonders whether anybody could have fixed upon a less-inviting moniker than Small Fishy Bites? She trusts the new book from Marisa Raniolo Wilkins, who also wrote the very good Sicilian Seafood Cooking, holds more promise than its distinctly fishy title. And speaking of titles, Detective would like to declare that she is officially sick and tired of restaurants including one, or a combination of, the following words in their names: Social, Street, Public, Urban and Diner. It's as overdone as one of her home cooking attempts.

FORGET the standard spruce or pine, Detective rather likes the sound of the "Enchanting Trees" that have recently been installed at Peninsula Hotels in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing as her Christmas conifer of choice this year. The trees' gold metal branches hold six champagne flutes, and their trunks are champagne buckets. The flutes are filled with Perrier-Jouet's Belle Epoque cuvee while in situ before being lifted out of the tree and served. Much more civilised than the usual pine needles that detach and deposit themselves all over the carpet. Peninsula.com.

DETECTIVE also likes the sound of the Granny's Kitchen Kids Cooking Class to be held during the Margaret River Gourmet Escape in November. Hosted by Rebecca Sullivan, author of Like Grandma Used to Make, the class will teach kids aged five to 12 to use basic kitchen utensils such as graters, beaters and knives and give them the chance to cook and bake with some of the chefs, cooks, farmers and producers appearing at the event. "Granny's Kitchen is all about learning how to cook things just like nanna does," says the publicity blurb. If Detective's dearly departed nanna's cooking is anything to go by, steaks masquerading as shoe leather and vegetables steamed so long they've pureed themselves are certain to be on the menu. Gourmetescape.com.au.