Going to vegetable markets is a wonderful inspiration in itself and I go to Hong Kong two or three times a year. Otherwise, I love watching cooking shows like Rick Stein, Nigel Slater and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage. It's Cantonese and it reflects my own East-meets-West upbringing. It's called Cooking with Elaine 2: An intimate note to my beloved daughter. At the moment I'm reading one by my friend Elaine Ma. My Panasonic (SR-JHF18) rice cooker is great – it even has a setting for congee. My QASAIR exhaust range is great and I'm happy with my Smeg stovetop, which I'm careful to wipe clean after every use. My Zwilling J.A.Henckels cleaver is a must-have item but I keep a range of tools hanging above my stove, including microplanes, a bamboo grater and tongs. Otherwise, I like drinking cabernet sauvignon – it has lots of tannin and it's very earthy. I haven't had a cocktail for 30 years because of my diabetes but I'll have half-a-dozen stubbies of beer a year. I found out I am allergic to coffee 20 years ago but I drink a lot of English breakfast and pu-erh Chinese tea, which is very mild and great with rich or oily food. Corn and cabbage are my favourite vegetables – we boil the corn and with the cabbage we do a quick simple stir-fry with a bit of oil and salt. In the fridge I keep washed coriander, parsley and spring onion (make sure it's dry when you put it in the bag), I love Jap pumpkin, which I roast with cumin, nutmeg, garlic and olive oil and there's always yoghurt for Alice. My fridge In the freezer I have Sara Lee French Vanilla (for guests, I'm not allowed), squid tentacles for paella, bread for making croutons and bacon for houseguests (and me). I also keep Spanish paprika for my paellas (my tip is to stack one grill plate on another on the stovetop to raise the pan up for a wider heat) and dried tangerine, which is essential for making black-bean sauce and offsetting muddy-flavoured fish. But I I can't eat too much pasta because I have diabetes. Just mix the fish until it is elastic, use a piece of dumpling skin to make a siu mai and steam it in a pot. I always have Rustichella pasta and pasta sauce handy, three different sizes of spaghetti, which I use depending on the sauce. There's some dried ginseng for making tea if I feel a cold coming on, tubs of licorice for a friend who often drops by, polenta that I use with slow-cooked lamb in winter – but nothing for making Peking duck. When Lau's not lending an experienced hand at Jason and Michael Lau's restaurant he cooks simple meals at home for his wife Alice and himself in a kitchen that was renovated a decade ago. He's Gilbert Lau, 72, Melbourne restaurant royalty and, since Australia Day just past, a Member of the Order of Australia. He founded Flower Drum, one of the best Chinese restaurants in the world, in 1975 and, although technically retired since 2002, he's been more than a familiar face at his sons' restaurant, Lau's Family Kitchen, since it opened in 2006.
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