lemons in salt = good

My dear friend Megsy Loader popped out a sprog about nine months ago, but there's not a strained carrot in sight on her stylin' top five. Very M.Beer with the lemons there, Loads. Verjuice anyone?

1. Preserved lemon

2. Olives

3. Organic tinned tomatoes

4. Caramelized balsamic

5. Fresh herbs - always dill & parsley

a few of my favourite things

I want to know what five foods are always in your fridge. Other than, you know, the boring/regular stuff like milk or soy sauce or champagne. (Tomatoes in there? Get 'em out!) The five in my fridge* are:

1. Sheep's milk yoghurt, preferably from King Island Dairy

2. Mixed marinated olives from the deli

3. Fresh chillis. And usually at least two different chilli sauces too, actually

4. Goat's milk fetta and/or Spanish manchego sheep's milk cheese

5. Kiwifruit

(* Actual fridge not pictured)

soup

Soup. I like it. The best meal you can get under a tenner in Sydney could well be a bowl of soup. Like the pho from Yen's across the road from where I work in Redfern. Clear sweet broth, thick and slippery pale noodles, strips of beef, crunchy bean sprouts and a twist of mint and lemon. I always add some of the fiery birds eye chillis too. Where chicken soup is Jewish penicillin this is my Vietnamese salve. And it'll set me back less than eight bucks.