Don't let the prawn on the barbie cliche spook you. This is as contempo as you care, but why would you? Just enjoy.

Ingredients

24 large raw king prawns, peeled and deveined, tails left intact 185ml Asian marinade (see below) Green salad, to serve Asian Marinade: 70ml grapeseed oil 1 tb sesame oil 1 cm piece ginger, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tb oyster sauce 2 tb kecap manis 1 tb fish sauce Red chilli, finely chopped, to taste (optional) Makes 1 cup.

Method

Asian Marinade: Put the grapeseed and sesame oils, ginger, garlic, oyster sauce, kecap manis, fish sauce and chilli into a bowl. Stir to combine and use as required. Asian marinade can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Prawns: Place the prawns in the Asian marinade for 1 minute before cooking, then chargrill on a preheated barbeque

Classy number from some blokes called George Calombaris & Gary Mehigan - you've probably never heard of them.

Ingredients

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main 2 star anise 2 teaspoons fennel seeds 1 teaspoon white peppercorns 55g table salt 55g caster sugar finely grated zest of 1 lemon 1 × 500 g kingfish fillet, skin-on, pin-boned olive oil, for cooking 1 tablespoon chervil leaves micro herbs to serve Mussel Vinaigrette 2 vine-ripened tomatoes boiling water 60 ml extra virgin olive oil 1 large shallot, finely chopped 2 sprigs thyme 1 small clove garlic, chopped 500g small black mussels (sold as cocktail mussels from Tasmania), bearded 2 tablespoons dry white wine squeeze of lemon juice

Method

1. Crush the star anise with a mortar and pestle, then add the fennel seeds and peppercorns and pound lightly together. Reserve 1 teaspoon of this spice mixture. Mix the remainder in a small bowl with the salt, sugar and lemon

Chardonnay sits on the fence of many a wine enthusiast. Versatile, kind in nature and oh so compliant, however for most it's still dressed in attire that's so distinctly... 90s. Shoulder pads, overalls and bike shorts saw this particular version of white wine with such a wooded vengeance, we were practically asking the chefs to take the butter out of the meals to make way for it. Thankfully however, times are a changin'. Underneath all that 90s getup reveals elegance and sophistication and Australia is doing its bit to make Chardy interesting again.

What a decade the 90s was! A quick poll in the office had my colleagues recalling happy pants, grunge, MC Hammer, 90210, mobile phones, the twilight of the Hawke/Keating era, Monica Lewinsky and of course... Chardonnay. It’s important to note that Chardonnay was here well before the 90s but this was the decade it was introduced to us, the masses, in two very distinct phases – wooded and unwooded. The wooded era came to us in the early 90s when many of the larger companies were serving up Chardonnay so cloaked in oak flavour and so oily in texture that the variety itself was lost in the noise. I kept hearing descriptors like ‘coconut and vanilla’ to describe the nose and ‘sweet’ to describe the taste. This was a time where we got to learn more about the application of oak in all its forms (chips and barrels) and residual sugar added in spoonfuls. Inevitably the overcorrection came where suddenly producers were scrambling to unleash their unwooded

Considerably cooler than the surrounding plains, the hills are washed in rain during winter months, and the peaks wrapped in fog. It is considered a high rainfall region compared to other Australian regions, but outside of winter the climate is warm and dry. Night time temperatures are the feature - notably cooler than the day when the sun sets. Worth noting is how the average rainfall increases the higher you go, with Mount Lofty picking up 1400mm on the old splash-o-meter compared to 850mm just 10K down the road in Charleston. This range of moisture and altitudes results in a variety of soils, but in general are sand and clay loam over clay subsoils. A bit of shale and ironstone can be found, and the soil is acidic on average and rarely acidic.

The combination of climate and soil lends to superb cool-weather whites like Riesling (if you watch for mould), Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and crisp Chardonnays. Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon can also be found, with the grapes