Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 07 March
6:45 PM - 9:00 PM
From her studies as the only foreign apprentice in a prestigious Chengdu cooking school to her storied career as an award-winning food writer, there are fewer better guides to a Sichuan kitchen (outside of China), than Fuchsia Dunlop.
Described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘the best writer in the West on Chinese food’, Fuchsia’s passion for her subject is unmistakeable, and has been artfully collected in a series of bestselling cookery books.
Tonight Fuchsia takes us on a culinary adventure to Sichuan, courtesy of the wonderful folks at Dainty Sichuan restaurant. Throughout the evening, she’ll share her extraordinary experiences in China in the best possible way – accompanied by an exquisite six course banquet of specially selected dishes from her new collection, Every Grain of Rice.
Fuchsia will be speaking with food aficionado and Melbourne rock identity Julian Wu.
Featuring
Julian Wu
Julian Wu is Melbourne’s foremost rock chef, with a long history straddling Melbourne’s rock and street food scenes from the 1980s to the present day.
Always a keen amateur chef, his first gig after completing high school was working as a short order cook in a suburban pizza parlour in the early 1980s. Shortly after that, he met and befriended influential Australian band The Triffids and joined their road crew for a couple of tours in the mid 1980s, later joining the band on stage as a guitarist when the band reformed in 2006 and played with them on their “A Secret In The Shape of a Song” shows in Australia and Europe between 2008-2010.
In the 1990s he worked as a freelance Sound Recording engineer and music producer, and in the years from 1998 to 2001 he worked as the in-house sound recordist at Melbourne’s now defunct but much missed Continental Cafe. Some of the artists he has recorded include The Blackeyed Susans, Dirty Three, Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch, Ron Sexsmith, The GoBetweens, and most recently the Primitive Calculators.
Since the late 1990sm, he’s become known for his barbecue cooking skills, preparing themed barbecues to complement the bands playing at Raoul (now Pure Pop) records in St Kilda, and later at The Tote, in Collingwood.
He worked on the writing team of the SBS TV show RocKwiz for the first 4 seasons. His cooking has been featured in American barbecue guru Steve Raichlen’s book Planet Barbecue. He also co-ordinated the food for 3RRR’s Melbourne Barbecue Day for the first five years - from its inception in 2001 on the old Triple R rooftop to its relocation to CERES.
Julian presented two events (Game On and Stranded) for the 2012 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival at Ponyfish Island. He is currently formulating plans to open his own restaurant bar in the upcoming year.
Fuchsia Dunlop
Fuchsia Dunlop was the first Westerner to train at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, and has been travelling around China collecting recipes for nearly two decades.
Fuchsia writes for the Financial Times, the New Yorker and the Observer, among others. Her previous books include the award-winning Sichuan Cookery and Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper.