Pre-ordering your coffee and collecting it on the run from your local cafe. What a good idea. Obviously there will be more locations available soon, but in the meantime I hope they get enough business to keep it rolling.
Holiday critics' cash for comment
THE SWITCHED-ON TOURIST: David Carroll September 19, 2009
Article from: The Australian
AMERICAN travellers have a reputation for being rather loud. But in the online world, it seems, we Australians are the ones who really enjoy being heard.
Research company Forrester claims that more than one-quarter of Australians active online regularly post content on the internet, such as videos, blogs and holidays snaps (putting us ahead of the US, where about 20 per cent of online adults are so-called creators). Even more of us, 35 per cent, apparently are critics who post reviews or contribute to online forums.
If you enjoy bagging shoddy hotels, praising good tour operators or just passing on helpful travel tips, then consider sending your work to one of the growing number of websites that will reward you for your efforts.
There are plenty of sites that pay for written reviews, including Helium (www.helium.com), Review Stream (www.reviewstream.com) and Associated Content (www.associatedcontent.com). And if you enjoy creating videos in your hotel room -- um, let me be more specific -- of your hotel room, then consider uploading your film to Tripr.tv (www.tripr.tv).
These sites entice contributors with a wide variety of payment models. Some offer a set fee for your review, video or slideshow, some link earnings to the number of people who read or view your work while others operate a combination of the two. Generally, once you've earned a specified amount you can use an online payment system such as PayPal to download your money.
Other sites offer the ability to earn points, which then can be redeemed for vouchers or products. A good example is Rough Guides (www.roughguides.com), where reviews generate so-called GO Points, which can be converted in Australia for gift certificates. You start earning points as soon as you register and post your first piece.
One of the latest sites to pop up, Simonseeks, is pursuing a slightly different approach. Started by super-rich online entrepreneur Simon Nixon, the site is aiming to attract one million unique visitors a month and its user-generated destination guides (of which there are already more than 1500) are an important part of its strategy.
Visitors can search for guides based on destinations, themes or budget and rate them on quality and relevance, withthe most popular enjoying more prominence.
What's interesting about the Simonseeks concept is that it's willing to reward contributors whose guides encourage consumers to book a holiday component. Every time a reader takes the next step by clicking through to an affiliated site product and making a booking, Simonseeks splits the commission revenue it receives 50-50. It also shares display advertising revenue with review writers.
It's not the first website to turn reviewers into salespeople; Tripr.tv also pays a fee to video-makers when their work results in a hotel booking. But Simonseeks is certainly the most ambitious venture of its kind. Between now and December, for example, the site is giving away pound stg. 20,000 ($39,000) worth of prizes to people who post great reviews.
Theoretically, as some of the sites eagerly point out, the amount of money you can make contributing reviews is unlimited. In reality, don't quit your day job as you'd need to be posting content that regularly captures the attention of tens of thousands of readers just to eke out an uncertain existence.
Still, there's no harm in earning a little spending money for your next trip.
Scents and Sensibility
London's best parfumer has opened an inviting tea salon, reports Susan Kurosawa
September 19, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A TINY salon-style setting at the rear of a shop in ever-so-posh Mayfair is the venue for London's most fragrant place to take tea.
Lyn Harris has one of Britain's best noses; this young French-trained parfumer has gained a reputation for her range of unusual fragrances -- she even produces a perfume based on the sharp smells of the salt marshes of Normandy -- and she has branched into the aromatic world of tea leaves.
Harris says drinking "rare and beautiful teas has always been an essential luxury" for her. So combining a discerning palate with that fine nose, Harris has collaborated with a leading "teasmith", Tim d'Offay of Postcard Teas in Mayfair, to source a selection of black, white and oolong teas from "the finest tea gardens in the East".
She has blended these precious leaves with her favourite comestible natural essences, including bergamot and warm spices, to create the Fragrant Tea by Lyn Harris range of three blends, which was launched in September last year in her Miller Harris stores. The beautifully packaged teas seem to have acquired a natural home alongside fragrances, candles, single-note oils and bath and body unguents. Surely anyone who walks into a Miller Harris store must instantly twitch their nose in joy.
On a spring morning I take tea with Harris at her serene Bruton Street flagship store. There are just a few tables in a setting of bentwood chairs, banquettes and fabrics with buttercup-yellow botanical prints. From Royal Albert porcelain teacups of the flowery design best used by dainty ladies I sample her three signature blends. No milk or sugar entertained, of course, as such additives sully the pure taste.
She tells me that experimenting with food-grade versions of her perfume ingredients, such as bergamot and rose, started "as a fun thing". We start with bergamot, Harris's bespoke version of classic earl grey. "Pure bergamot can be too harsh," Harris says, so she has added tangerine vert and, "to give it a final twist", the base has "a pinch of vanilla". The tea is so deliciously heady it's hard to know whether to drink it or dab a bit behind the ears.
We progress, via baby cupcakes with rose icing, to Petales, which has a core of white tip oolong tea from Taiwan and geranium bourbon from the Reunion Islands off the west coast of southern Africa. In itself that sounds like an aromatic recipe but Harris has tempered the blend with notes of vanilla from Sri Lanka and rose absolute from Turkey. It is like drinking a bouquet.
Third in this epicurean range is Fume, a smoked variety that I imagine could be a cross between my favourite teas, russian caravan and lapsang souchong. It is and it isn't; Harris has used vanilla bourbon from Madagascar and cinnamon and cardamom from Sri Lanka blended into a black tea smoked over cinnamon wood. Now I am out of the garden and into the spice dens of the Orient. It is simply delicious, like a smoky, complex chai elevated to a sublime level.
Harris has been working on her second range since my May visit and she will launch a further three blends this month. The trio consists of bigarade, a full-bodied breakfast affair of second-flush Assam perked with Sri Lankan vanilla, while Violette, as its name roundly suggests, fuses this flower (and blackcurrant buds and green mulberry leaves) with the "sweet muscatel notes" of second-flush darjeeling.
The third, Sauvage, uses rare Tong Mu Mountain tea blended with accents of rosemary, French lavender and "the sweet, malted notes" of pekoe.
Harris is widely considered the leading independent parfumer in Britain and in her domestic laboratory has been experimenting for more than 10 years; she set up the Miller Harris brand in 2000 and regularly releases new fragrances. Her latest is Fleurs de Bois, which she says has been inspired by "walks through the secret garden in London's Regent's Park". The scent is green and woody, like dewy grass on a cool morning. Like her teas, its smell is utterly transporting.
Fragrant Tea by Lyn Harris costs pound stg. 16 ($31) for a 50g caddy; refill, pound stg. 9.95. The Miller Harris Fragrant Tea Room is at 21 Bruton St, London W1J 6QD (off New Bond Street, near Mayfair and Piccadilly). Open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5.30pm. The new Fleurs de Bois perfume costs pound stg. 70 for 100ml eau de parfum; Miller Harris also designs bespoke fragrances for clients. Products are available online. More: www.millerharris.com.
You need to sign up for it, but I think that if you are the kind of person who really can't be arsed trolling through your cookbook library for every little thing (preferring instead to search online...like I do) then this could be a godsend. Just tell it what books you have and it will make your life easier. Can't argue with that.
Used to be that you had to order your American candy fix from specialist shops online. But now, not so. There are a plethora of places in Brisbane now that stock classic US chocolates and candies, like Junior Mints (Seinfeld!), Hershey's (although they've been here for a while), Reese's Pieces, Butterfinger, Almond Joy , Twizzlers, Red Vines and so on.So at this stage, it seems to be mostly independendents deciding whether or not to stock these imports. Once the supermarkets get on to it, that will be the end of you, Cadbury.
Personally, I have a weakness for Reese's range of peanutty goodness, and I also love me a Junior Mint. They are definitely sweeter than I prefer, but there's something about that processed, artificially-flavoured, fake-butter flakiness: that melting mouthfeel, that down-home all-American combination of innocence and bravado that appeals.
And while I'm on the topic, Oreos. Lame American TV ads ("My mom says...gulp... chocolate isn't good for dogs") and dodgy Aussie ripoffs ("Bachelors!!") aside, they really are a perfect companion to a tall frosty glass of cold milk. Every time there's an Oreo packet in the office, they last for a maximum of three minutes before the sound of contented munching breaks out.
Ready to freak out? Here's the ingredients in an Oreo:
SUGAR, ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE, MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), HIGH OLEIC CANOLA OIL AND/OR PALM OIL AND/OR CANOLA OIL, AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORNSTARCH, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA AND/OR CALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, SOY LECITHIN (EMULSIFIER), VANILLIN - AN ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CHOCOLATE. CONTAINS: WHEAT, SOY.
Yeah, but whatever. I'm sure it's all that alkali-processed cocoa that makes them taste awesome, right?
The newest kid in this sunny town: I Ate Brisbane.
Looks like a good start! Hopefully they will maintain the quality.
Menulog is an Australian site that lets you order pickup or delivery online, from over 600 restaurants across Australia. It's easy to use and also contains a guide to 20,000 Australian restaurants. I haven't used it to order anything yet, but it seems to be very comprehensive and definitely a good idea, especially when travelling and you are looking for something in a new area.
There is a special Menulog discount offer for readers of The Poison Doughnut.
Get $10 off on your first delivery order using this voucher code: 5A4A74
Note: Available for participating restaurants only (which display the “accepts vouchers”) sign.
The voucher is valid until November 2009. Readers may use this on their first order from participating restaurants on the site (look for the "accepts voucher" sign.)
This discount must be used for a minimum purchase of $20.
Here's the site: apply online for quick and easy kitchen stardom!
Anyone going to try out?
