Family Recipes From Around The World

QLD syndication for News Ltd Regional September 2018

IN THE production office for The Chefs' Line, there's a display known as the 'wall of love'.

The feel-good cooking show pits home cooks against professional chefs and their staff in a friendly competition themed around a different cuisine each week. There's no cash prize, unlike most of the other reality cooking shows on TV.

"We have a wall of love in the production office where we display the messages home cooks have sent us," judge and co-host Melissa Leong tells The Guide.

"They send us cards, flowers, emails. It makes every single member of the crew so happy people have such a good experience being on the show.

"The competition structure itself is extremely low stakes, It's just a format people understand and it allows us to be able to showcase people's multi-generational recipes. It's a show that celebrates food, cultural diversity and love in equal doses."

Leong, a Melbourne-based food writer and journalist, hosts the series, now in its second season, with chefs Dan Hong and Mark Olive.

Knowledgeable, glamorous and respected in the industry, she seems made for TV. But Leong says she never considered a role on the small screen until she was asked to audition for The Chefs' Line.

"People had suggested I look into it over the years, but to be honest I never really sought out television,' she says.

"Paul Franklin, the CEO of Eureka Productions (and the key creative architect behind MasterChef), pitched me the idea and asked me to sit in on this chemistry test. I walked into this green room there was Poh (Ling Yeow) and Adam Liaw and Maeve O'Meara. I just laughed and thought 'I'll never get this'. I joked about drinking gravy and all sorts of things and apparently that's what they were after."

Falling into food writing "accidentally" after working in advertising, Leong is a voice bridging the old and the new. While she champions the 'old school' values of fine dining, she also embraces social media and inspires home cooks on her website fooderati.com.au.

"My parents come from Singapore, so that was my initial qualification for knowing anything about food. That's just the way you're brought up - you learn how to eat and shop," she says.

"Then when I started working as a freelance journalist and food writer, it really consolidated a lot of who I was. I've always felt easy talking about food so to be able to communicate about food in that capacity has been the greatest joy of the last decade of my life."

Next week, The Chefs' Line will showcase Mexican food, a cuisine which continues to gain popularity in Australia.

"Mexican week goes into an all-out colourful fiesta. There's singing and taunting and lots of yelling in Spanish," she says.

"For the longest time what the general Australian public thought of as Mexican was Tex Mex, but now we're understanding the regionality of Mexican food a lot better. It suits the Australian climate so well ."

The Chefs' Line airs weekdays at 6pm on SBS-TV.

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The Chefs' Line Conquers India!

Home cooks battle against the pros on The Chefs’ Line, and celebrated Australian food writer and judge, Melissa Leong, weighs in

The prospect of a home cook going up against a professional chef on a competitive culinary game show seems daunting and terrifying. But Melissa Leong, food writer and one of three judges on the recently-launched show, The Chefs’ Line, doesn’t think it’s an uneven playing field. The Australian cooking show that premièred last week on Zee Café, has a unique premise: in 13 episodes across the season, home cooks battle against professional chefs, focusing on a specific cuisine for each episode.

“On the surface, you think that professionals going against amateurs is a no brainer. But we can’t forget that home cooks bring with them generations of handed down knowledge, love, passion and technique about their culture, or, in some cases, they have fallen so in love with a particular cuisine that they have devoted a lot of time to learning about it,” says Leong, who has a background in journalism and radio broadcasting.

Judge’s corner

Hosted by famed Australian food personality Maeve O’Meara, The Chefs’ Line is judged by Leong, along with native ingredient expert and chef, Mark Olive, and renowned restaurateur and chef, Dan Hong. When asked about how she got involved with the show, she says, “Hong pitched the idea and I found it interesting. The idea of passion versus profession is a lot more evenly matched than you think. You’re in for a few surprises in terms of what people produced on the show,” says Leong who is making her television debut with the show.

Shot over a span of six weeks, the culinary challenge showcases a range of global cuisines, each chosen to reflect the breadth of Australia’s multicultural make-up. “We were shooting for long hours during the summer, sometimes shooting two episodes over a day,” Leong says, adding, “The question that we asked ourselves as judges was ‘Was it delicious? Would I go back for more?’”

Read the full story in The Hindu here!

#BringBackTheClassics with SBS Food!

Published on SBS Food, Nov 3, 2017

Musk sticks, milkshakes, burgers with beetroot and Icy Poles, what it is about milkbars that will always have a place in our hearts? Read on for my very first feature story for SBS Food! 

By Melissa Leong

Before the days of branded strip malls and hyper accessible fast food, were simpler times. Times when we didn’t think about quitting sugar and where anything (well, almost anything) could come battered and fried.

Whether your childhood roots lie in the city, the country or possibly more crucially in the neighbourhood suburbs of this wide brown land, a trip to the milkbar with your friends has long been a beloved rite of passage when it comes to growing up in Australia.

For many of us, milkbars gave us our first taste of the concept of saving and spending, treats and indulgence. From blowing your hard earned pocket money on a bag of red frogs or musk sticks, discovering the joys of biting into a sloppy hamburger with the lot, egg yolk and beetroot juice running down your arms, or riding your bike with your mates in the searing summer heat in pursuit of an icy treat – then having to ride all the way home again - almost everyone who spent some part of their childhood growing up in Australia can recount a fond milkbar memory.

Milkbars were the cornerstones of our communities. A multi-purpose, family-friendly (and often family-run) local establishment, where people would get the down low on local gossip, meet up with friends or make new ones. It meant sweet treats for kids, a night off cooking (and a lazy indulgence) for parents, it was also the purveyor of the paper, the milk and the occasional cheeky packet of cigarettes. Over time, these establishments may have faded from memory and become superseded by economic reality, but there’s no question of their contribution in the decades when they were king. Milkbars were not only a crucial part of Australian food culture for nearly half a century, but also influenced the way many of us connected with neighbours.

The first business named a ‘milk bar’ was opened in Bangalore, India by a Brit named James Meadow Charles in 1930, but closer to home, it was Mick Adams - also known by his OG (original Greek) name of Joachim Tavlaridis - who is said to have opened Australia’s first milkbar, in Martin Place, Sydney, not too long after.

Wanting to provide an alternative style of hospitality establishment to the hard drinking Australian pub culture that continues today, he created a more family-friendly option, modeled on American-style drugstores, which served up sundaes and milkshakes and wholesome good times. In her book Milkbar Memories (Murdoch Books RRP $39.99), author Jane Lawson goes on to note that over the next 5 years, nearly 4,000 more milkbars like Mick’s were opened, mainly run by Greek families following the groundswell of European immigration, around Australia. Throughout the next decades, every neighbourhood, country town and city corner became home to the institution of the milkbar.

For the young, and those newly introduced to Australia, milkbars represented an opportunity to dip a toe in the water when it came to discovering Australian food culture at a grass roots level. Favourites might include chest freezers full of chilly treats, from Icy Poles to Golden Gaytimes and Cornettos, or frothy milkshakes in chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or caramel and where the only thing green in a drink was lime flavouring.

And then there’s the Aussie milkbar burger. Not to be mistaken for an imitation of its American cousin, a proper Australian milkbar burger doesn’t come on a steamed bun, but one made of denser, more substantial stuff. You need that structural integrity after all, to hold in the hefty layers of juicy beef, shredded iceberg lettuce, tomato, cheese, beetroot, bacon, egg and… if you’re feeling tropical, a pineapple ring. Regionally, there are Dagwood dogs, potato scallops, battered fish, meat pies, sausage rolls, dim sims, Chiko rolls and everywhere, everyone fought over the extra crunchy chips.

Our fondness for these foods are not, of course, was never for their nutritional value, but for their nostalgic one; an association with youth, family and a feeling of community connectedness that we yearn most for in the face of increasingly globalised, commercialised and homogenised existence. 

Love the story? Follow the author here: Twitter @fooderati Facebook fooderati, Instagram @fooderati

Feeling nostalgic? We want you! For the month of November, SBS Food are asking food lovers far and wide to get creative by putting a multicultural twist or your creative spin on an Australian classic... Welcome to #BringBackTheClassics - enter now!

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13 Reasons Worth Going In For Seconds

From fabulous fusions, roll-your-eyes-back-in-your-head delicious recipes to on-screen grooving, food expertise and the quirky banter along the way, #TheChefsLine has delivered it all and then some. For the past 13 weeks, all of this has certainly filled my heart - this squad are the real deal when it comes to food TV.

Is it too soon to say I miss you? #needymuch me is ready to petition the A-team of Dan, Melissa, Mark and Maeve to cook me up some of their deliciousness. One can only dream, but seriously, throw a gal a bone - preferably with some lamb on it.

Whether you love to cook, love to eat or love to TV, this series reigns supreme among the food gods and #ICYMI the entire series is available on SBS On Demand, perfect for those who love to binge on their viewing - we highly recommend snacks, of course.

So what is it about this series that has people wanting more? It's got it all.

1. Can't decide on one dish? Have them all!

For the record, we have over 100 recipes on our site right now from the entire series, so you can watch and devour!

Have we got your attention and your tastebuds? Check out the program page for episode guides, cuisine lowdowns, recipes and more. Binge on the entire series right here on SBS On Demand.

13 weeks, 13 cuisines, one delicious sitting! In case you missed any of the fun you can binge until your heart's content right now on SBS On Demand. By Farah Celjo July 4, 2017

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The Chefs' Line: ON AIR NOW ON SBS!

"Lights...cameras...just do your best, darling." 

The Chef's Line starts Monday 3 April on SBS. For all the latest, CLICK HERE.

52 television episodes shot over 26 days, in just 5 1/2 weeks...now THAT'S the definition of a pressure cooker! Earlier this year, inside a converted iron foundry - turned studio, I found out exactly what it takes to make a 5 day a week television show. The Chefs' Line is my first major TV gig, but as they say, go big or go home, right?

The premise of the show is simple: celebrating the incredible diversity of food culture we have in Australia, week by week, in the (now) very familiar format of a cooking competition show. Four home cooks adept in a specific cuisine, battle their way up the kitchen hierarchy of a restaurant specialising in the same food, as we ask the question: "Can home cook passion beat restaurant professionalism?". But don't take my word for it, check out SBS for the down low on the show, the players and plenty of recipes and links to episode catch ups, so you can binge watch in your own time, should you be so inclined.

On a more serious note, I'm excited and honoured to have been involved in this brand new show for SBS: being part of a prime time show where the key anchors are two first generation Australians of Asian descent and an Indigenous Australian. It makes me feel proud to see how far we have come as a nation and to challenge whose faces programmers think we want to see on the screen. SBS is a network built on the tenants of what makes our country great - celebrating our diversity and sharing the skills, knowledge and love from our original homes, to enrich this one...and I couldn't be happier to be part of showcasing the real face of this amazing country we call Australia. I hope you enjoy the show!

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