Coastal Capers

How often do you travel
I&rsquom probably gone for about four to five months a year&mdashand it&rsquos all food specific. We&rsquore actually celebrating my 40th year cooking I&rsquom then going to Russia for the Worldchefs Congress & Expo, plus Singapore for a pop up. You couldn&rsquot pick a place in India because every 10 kilometres the food changes. And that&rsquos a beautiful thing. I spent two long terms here&mdashmy 21st birthday by the banks of the Ganges, the same year Indira Gandhi was assassinated, and a return in &lsquo96 to travel for nine months. Recently, I took a group from Chennai to Kerala on a food adventure. I really don&rsquot know where I&rsquom heading next. People invite me and I go 

You&rsquore a stickler for responsible sourcing. What could the average person do differently
Anywhere in the world, try and buy stuff that comes from within 100 kilometres. Then you&rsquore carbon neutral and supporting the people close to you. My restaurant, Noosa Beach House, is on the coast, but has a diverse hinterland for farming. We have chickens in caravans, they&rsquore towed around, they run wild in large enclosures. When they&rsquove eaten all the insects from that area, the caravan moves on. Happy chickens, happy food. But in India, with so many people, it&rsquos hard to be a purist. 

And vegetables Is there any Sri Lankan produce Indians ought to try cooking with
There&rsquos breadfruit&mdashit&rsquos like a mini-jackfruit, with no spikes. You take the skin off, and you roast it or boil it. Then there&rsquos 37 different varieties of bananas, three or four of them eaten green as a curry. Then ridge gourd, snake gourd, bitter gourd. It&rsquos funny, when I asked here, &lsquoare there any dietary limits&rsquo They said no. Then I asked, &lsquoare there any vegetarians&rsquo and they go, &lsquoah, no, that&rsquos different&rsquo (laughs). In Australia, if you&rsquore a vegetarian, you might not eat cheese, or you might not eat butter. Here it&rsquos easy&mdash &lsquoveg or non-veg Bang Thanks for coming.&rsquo 

What&rsquos something unexpected you found while researching your books
In Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, what they put their meat on is delicious. The accompaniment&mdashwhether it&rsquos Persian-influenced potatoes or eggplant or whatever&mdashcould be the base for vegetarian food, even if you omit the meat. 

Asian food has risen a lot. Many say it&rsquos dethroned European fine dining. Thoughts
I probably shouldn&rsquot say it, but I just think Asian food comes from a deeper root. The world got flavour between Sri Lanka, India, China, and Mexico. Without those spots, we&rsquod be eating boiled meat with no salt. Think about it. Cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, maize. Chilli, chocolate, chewing gum and avocado from Mexico. Passion fruit. The flavours of the world have always been within that Silk Route. In Indonesia,they used to build massive boats called pinisi. At a certain time of the year, the winds would blow them north to Europe. Though civilised, it still had no toilets. And so vanilla and mace became highly prized to cover up the smells. It&rsquos an interesting spin around how the world&rsquos gone. Asia and Mexico held the most precious things, but somehow the north used better ships and guns to take it all. But it&rsquos coming back now. For centuries, Asians have known the medicinal value of food, and supermarkets are now selling everything from gotu kola to cold-pressed coconut oil. It&rsquos come full circle. 

If you couldn&rsquot be a chef, what was Plan B
When we got to Australia, it was hard to see people racially vilifying my family. School was the first place I wanted to get away from. I spent a lot of time repairing things, so I can&nbspdo electricals, plumbing, and repaint cars. I&rsquom quite handy. Rebuilding vintage motorcycles is a hobby. In case it all went wrong, I also got a forklift driver&rsquos licence After all these&nbspyears, restaurants up and down, I think I&rsquom a pretty good businessman. I could still do a short catch-up course in college to become a lawyer. But I couldn&rsquot think of anything worse than sitting in an office. 

What&rsquos something memorable from a recent trip
I went to China, and the language barrier was so bad. I needed a kilo of salt, but couldn&rsquot explain it. So I took one of those one-gram packets, pointed at it, and said, &lsquoI need this, but one kilo. One thousand of this.&rsquo The bugger went away for hours while I sat in a room. When I went to check, he was tearing one thousand sachets and pouring them into a pile 

Finally&mdashany culinary mantras you live by
My father gave me lots. Just being organised. Thinking ahead. Working hard, not complaining. Having an end goal is a good one. There&rsquos a saying &lsquoI&rsquove been looking for the key all my life, but the door&rsquos always been open.&rsquo Nowadays, as a cook, they want to be famous. Just back off Enjoy it.