Nadine Williams

Food fit for a chef

Renowned Adelaide French-born chef Jean-Pierre Rival knows how to throw a fabulous party and his recent 55^th birthday naturally revolved around food and music.

JP, as he is affectionately known, is the head chef at the Hahndorf Old Mill and much of his leisure time is spent as First Tenor with the Adelaide Male Voice Choir.

The party, held poolside involved waves of wonderful food, but his two slabs of chicken liver pate, as big as house bricks, were set on the table at the beginning. (recipe follows).

Oysters naturelle were alongside, but soon he presented Oysters Kilpaterick and Oysters in Champagne sauce (recipe follows) and Thai oysters. We consumed 10 dozen oysters in all before  the scallops in curried cheese sauce and the chilli prawns which whetted our appetites for an array of skewered meats.

“I am still driven by the passion for food that I have always had,’’ says JP of his culinary delights.

“I have always been very frustrated in restaurants in Australia because I could never cook what I have been trained to cook, and really want to cook – French cuisine.’’

When JP came to Australia 20 years ago he had received a serious background in haute cuisine in France and had already spent 20 years of his life in commercial kitchens.

“French cooking is so basic, but you can play with it…all those different techniques we can use once we know how.

French cuisine had had a huge influence on method and presentation, but mostly on the development of taste.

“It is so authentic. It was the Frnech who began using cream and butter, for instance.’’

“I could use the frypan, the steamer, the barbecue, the griller in the preparation of food.’’

He tells how he made a menu for his party – a list of foods which he methodically prepared the previous week and stored in the second fridge.

All was presented with pride on the night. It included Beef Brochette, deep fried Spring Rolls and Simosa Meatballs and skewered, spiced chicken to name a memorable few.

No wonder we continued to lick our chops throughout the evening because JP has an ideal haute torque (high chef) pedigree.

He was apprenticed to high profile French chef Joel Robishon in France and became second chef and finally chef.

Then he moved to a division of Spotless Catering in France.

His most prestigious menu was to prepare dinner for the president of Versailles.

All long before he decided to migrate to Australia with his then partner, Catherine.

He had restaurants in Port Lincoln and the landmark restaurant Jean-Pierre’s at Hawthorn (now a Mexican restaurant).

“It is very, very hard to become a three-star Michelin chef,’’ says JP. The food has to be perfect, the restaurant has to be perfect and the wine has to be perfect.’’

Heading up a kitchen in the Adelaide Hills, serving thousands of  meals over the course of a month, is also taxing. Success, he says, is a complex mix of elements.

“It’s all about marketing, it’s all about price, about personality and customer service and mostly it’s all about the quality of the food.”

JP entertained with a repertoire of favourite sangs between courses with his mates accompanying him on piano and guitar. Then, he disappeared to the kitchen to present huge platters of fruit and nuts.

C’etait une superb soiree. (JPs recipes are on My French Kitchen.)

Chicken Liver Pate by Chef Jean Pierre Rival

Ingredients:

500 gr cleaned chicken livers, marinated for a few hours in mix of

200ml port, garlic, 1 large onion, salt and pepper, bayleaves. Everything goes into a steamer for 20 minutes.

DO NOT OVERCOOK because livers must be pink inside.

Strain all the livers and keep the juice, but take out the bayleaves, place in whatever container  you will use.

Blend livers together. ADD 150 grams melted butter into which is mixed one sachet of 50g gelatine.

Add slowly the marinade until the pate becomes like paste. It must not be sloppy.

Lastly, put in a half teaspoon of green peppercorn. (DO NOT BLEND pepprcorns, they must be whole). ADD salt and pepper.

Place in pate terrine, but first place Gladwrap in the mould and when you puti n the pate into the mould, ensure there is no air on the sides. Cover with Gladwrap until it is set.

JELLY:

250mls of water and Port and then add 3 sachets of gelatine. Stir until it boils and add juniper berries and peppercorn.

When the Pate is set, place jelly mix (slightly cooled) on the top and place in fridge until set..

Forever Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull must surely be feline because she has lived many lives to emerge in her later years a revered musical artist.

Six years ago when I was the celebrity columnist at The Advertiser in Adelaide, I interviewed Marianne Faithfull, who was in Adelaide for a one-night performance at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

I was honestly astounded at how she had resurrected herself from her decade of heroin addiction in the 1970s to arise and return “startlingly to life’’ as a mature singer.

I remember writing about her sheer survival from innocent convent girl to girlfriend of Mick Jagger, her failed suicide attempt, her heroin addiction and to rise up to pop star.

She lured her audience with a repertoire of  song which reflect on the life she has led. Her words were laced with such sadness and loss and I was truly disappointed to have to leave to write her review performance for the next day’s paper just as she was hotting up as an erotic chanteuse.

As I left, I noticed that her long black gown failed to cover her very sensible flat shoes – and gone, too, was the young whippet of a woman, who almost died in Mick Jagger’s Australian tour when she overdoesed.

In a recent article in the British Bazaar, the writer, her old friend James Fox captures the same sentiments when he writes.

“France is where Marianne has some of her greatest fans, particularly from its intellectual population, who like the way she carries the burden of her experience and her survival on her sandpapered voice,’’ he wrote.

And he quoted her as saying: “I have lived several lives in Paris.

“First of all, just going s alittle –girl 17-year-old pop singer and doing photo sessions for Salut les Copains with that great photographer Jean-Marie Perier, who of course I fell for, and meeting Serge Gainsbourg and things like that. Then another with Mick Jagger and Donald Cammell and Deborah Dixon and going to Castel’s and the Whisky a Gogo, and then being on drugs in Paris, which is another thing again, and now I live there not on drugs, as a musician.’’

And now Marianne, who Nick Cave says is “a true singer’’ has returned with a new album, taking another growth step including four songs of her own along with works from American singer-songwriter Dr John. 

Horses and High Heels (Naïve), recorded at the Piety Street Studios in New Orleans, was released in March.

Again she calls on memories in Dublin and of Paris and of “the girls in high heels running along Rue d’Anjou.

None other than the famous Nick Cave reckons “she’s a true singer’’ with her “beautiful racked chainsaw of a voice’’.

I didn’t find those words at the time, but I, too, remember a husky, hacked voice dripping with sadness and loss, to also reflected years of abuse. As she herself admits “The alcohol and the drugs and the smoking changed my voice.’’  But she also reckons its “the real me in there and I’ve had to find a voice to express it.’’

There was a recent hiatus, too, from which she has recovered.  There is a new optimism in the new album, produced three years after she went into drug rehabilitation – not for heroin or alcohol, but for addiction to sleeping pills, which affected her just as severely as being on heroin.

Borrowing from James Fox: “I do have regrets,’’ says Mariann. “On the whole, it’s all been great stuff. There’s nothing like it, having everything one minute and losing absolutely everything the next.’’

Fleurieu – a Treasury of Tourist Treats

Sometimes it takes someone from overseas to come to the state to confirm what we have always known that South Australia really is the best tourist destination in Australia.. Last weekend renowned tourism identities Rodney Twiss and his wife Regina and Alan and Diane Colton hosted tourism VIP Angelika Wegner, who represents our state’s tourism in Germany where she lives. It’s her job to send the German tourists to South Australia to explore our tourism delights. And what an exciting new tourism story our knowledgeable foursome could show off at the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. The barrages are open at the touristy River Port of Goolwa for the first time in eight years and the River Murray once more is an expansive full, flowing river. The historic steamer Oscar W was moored at the Goolwa wharf and the Twiss’s and the Coltons all ooed and aahed at the resurrection of this exciting watery tourist destination following floodwaters from interstate (and our own downpours). Then they headed off to Bombora Café at Goolwa Beach (the top seaside café in 2010) before and visiting the mouth of the River Murray, now flowing spectacularly without any help from dredging machinery. And to make it the perfect PR exercise, the sun shone with a rare warmth for the last week in April. In the evening, husband Olivier and I joined them all at Adare Apartments, holiday accommodation apartments owned and renovated by Alan and Diane which offer spectacular views over Encounter Bay to the Bluff.  Meanwhile, Rodney and Regina own the North Adelaide Heritage Group, which includes the renowned North Adelaide Fire Station and the Coltons own Victor Apartments.

Do Adelaide’s Movers and Shakers ever really retire? Or do they simply shift their energies to another passion. Take Steve Ramsey, former director of the Department of Families and Community Services, for instance. We discovered he has reinvented himself as a wine marketer of his own wines as one of three owners of a new winery – 90 Mile Wines with tasting rooms at Middleton on the main Goolwa to Victor Harbor road. It is under roof with the popular Blues Restaurant and today we spent a happy hour with him tasting his wines, in particular Beeamma Estate 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon – a beautiful plummy, velvety wine selling at $14 a bottle. Other owners are McLaren Vale identity Martin Kay and Craig Schiller, who owns a handful of pubs in Adelaide including the Holdfast and Tivoli, to name two. Its tasting rooms are 90 miles as the crow flies from the Padthaway Vineyards which they have owned since 1990, hence the name. It pays to become a member of their wine club because they give a generous 25 per cent off the per bottle price and they also believe in bakers’ dozens! “It’s a hard industry to be in,’’ says Steve. “But what pleases us is that we are in the industry and on our way.’’ See more on www.90milewines.com.