Hmm – shall I buy more of that unpasteurised Italian cheese, some smoked trout or perhaps a small piece of nougat? I was in the Gourmet Grocer yet again, so entranced by the range of food available that I was barely aware of the man who entered the shop and headed straight for the counter. With a few friendly words Andy, one of the owners, handed him a mysterious brown paper bag and watched the man leave the shop. He turned to me and in a confiding tone said, “He’s from Rockpool.” I was obviously meant to know what Rockpool was. Thank goodness it only took a few seconds of pretending to be impressed before I remembered. Rockpool is one of the top restaurants in Sydney. “What was he doing here?” I asked. “Buying black garlic.”

Black garlic? I had never heard of the stuff. But there it was – a basketful of burnt looking garlic bulbs – sitting at the counter. If you want black garlic in Sydney, you have to go to the Gourmet Grocer in Balmain. No doubt if I hung around the store long enough I would see all sorts of famous chefs wander in to secure some of this latest trendy food.

“Mummy, please can we have tacos tonight?” Obviously tired of the gourmet meals we have been eating lately my son was hanging out for some basic kids food. As I dropped him off at his new school I struggled with his simple request. “Perhaps we’ll have chicken wraps instead,” I suggested in my bright nutritionist voice while the nutritionist/food snob brain was thinking: I hate those supermarket Mexican taco sachets and sauces. I’d much rather do some healthy wholemeal wraps with hummus, beetroot, grated carrot and avocado with some lovely lean chicken breast strips.

Razor blades, scissors and fermented raisins – in what type of place would you find all these? Answer: my favourite French bakery. On a chilly Sunday evening a few weeks ago a group of us girls got together for an evening of baking bread under the expert tutelage of Thierry – the fantastic baker at Paris-Berlin bakery (formerly known as Boulangerie L’Epi) in Michaels Ave, Ellerslie, Auckland. We kneaded dough, tossed dough for pizzas, and neatly wrapped up a huge chunk of butter in dough and sugar to make a traditional sweet bread from Brittany – delicious and deadly for the thighs.

If you want to learn how to bake bread, or if you just want a fun evening out with pizza and red wine to finish book in at the bakery for a Sunday night class. Thierry only takes six people at a time so you get individual attention, and best of all you get to take home all the bread you make – about four loaves, a pizza and the deadly delicious one.

And where do the razor blades, scissors and fermented raisins come in? Thierry uses fermented raisins to start his sour dough which is the base for all his delicious organic breads. And we used the scissors and razor blades to make pretty shapes on our bread just before we baked it. Check out our baking creations here.

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I don’t buy crisps and hardly ever feel like eating them but put me in front a bowl of them and I can’t help myself! It’s even worse with a glass of wine and a few friends around. The ambiance, the conversation… before I know it I’ve mindlessly gobbled up hundreds of kilojoules and a few good spoonfuls of fat. It’s all to do with proximity.

So if it works with crisps, why not vegetables? This is the question that researchers at Cornell University recently answered with a resounding YES. Move the salad bar so it’s more ‘in your face’ and the kids eat more salad. Such a simple move, and not a mention of 5-a-day, antioxidants or any other cleverly crafted health coercement (not sure if that is a word but it sounds good!)

But hold on, don’t us mums already do that at home? We innately understand proximity. We chop an extra carrot, a few extra vegetables and pop them in front of the kids to allay the pre-dinner whining. We chop up fruit and put it on the table – and it gets eaten. If we told our kids to go eat an apple or a carrot, they would hardly jump at the idea. But when it’s placed in front of them most kids gladly eat it – especially if there’s nothing else on offer. I’ve found it works with husbands too.

So before the researchers and big business spend any more millions on working out how to get kids to eat their food, perhaps they could leave work early and see how it’s done in their own home!