On Monday The Cook Up with Adam Liaw will return to SBS Foods for a second time. Just about every weeknight from 7pm, the superstar prepare dinner will be joined by a pair of high-profile buddies – everyone from the actor Pia Miranda to fellow MasterChef alumnus Julie Goodwin – for half an hour of foods, entertaining and discussion.

Even though The Prepare dinner Up is filmed in Sydney, Liaw’s pre-pandemic adventures took him around the world. Other food-centric reveals observed the prepare dinner, writer and Television set host explore just about everywhere from Scandinavia to Singapore. On a single journey, filming his show Spot Flavour in China, Liaw occurred upon an antique tea shop. There he discovered a silver tea tray that he quickly fell for – but did not control provide home.

Below Liaw tells us about the tea tray that acquired absent, as effectively as the tale of two other handy personalized belongings.

What I’d save from my dwelling in a fireplace

I detest to say one thing so seemingly trivial, but it is probably my noise-cancelling headphones.

I truly, actually never offer effectively with loud noises and these are complete lifesavers. I wear them when I’m operating, on planes, watching Tv set at evening, and if I could get absent with donning them comprehensive-time about my kids with out on the lookout like a awful father, I completely would.

I uncover distinct types of sound to be a massive issue in how I understand strain. I have no difficulties with tunes, or heading to footy video games or concert events and cheering my head off. But when it comes to combos of noises like a Tv going with an extractor lover and a online video recreation all at the exact time, I discover it a very little hard. My headphones place in a ton of perform as a anxiety-reduction device – and if my dwelling was on fireplace I’d probably have them on previously.

My most helpful item

Adam Liaw’s rice cooker
‘We wake up to freshly cooked rice at 6am’: Adam Liaw’s each day rice ritual

Fingers down, my rice cooker. It receives made use of every single single day with out fail. We’ll usually have it on a timer so each individual morning we wake up to freshly cooked rice at 6am, and that pot will previous us through to dinner.

This one is a whiz-bang pressurised variation from Korea and it would make superb rice. I include a mixture of about 12 distinctive wholegrains to the rice, so in its place of just white rice (although I appreciate white rice) it is a mixture of white rice, brown rice, amaranth, sorghum, buckwheat, barley, black beans, azuki and several other things. That gives the rice a fantastic taste and aroma, and also extra protein and fibre.

In my loved ones (and quite a few Asian families) rice is the centre of just about every food, which is ironic thinking about my wife and I normally don’t take in it in the evenings. Our kids do, having said that. If nobody is possessing rice the meal somehow feels incomplete.

The item I most regret dropping

I was filming Vacation spot Flavour China a number of yrs ago and I experienced a scarce day off so I went out discovering. I’d wandered all over for a couple of hrs when I came across a small tea shop in the back streets of a residential spot.

I’m a bit of a tea nerd, so I went in and experienced a several cups with the owner. We chatted and, as well as tea, he also marketed tea antiques. He confirmed me this unspeakably stunning Qing dynasty silver tea tray and I quickly fell in love. Chinese tea trays are like very little tables: you can put teacups and teapots on top rated, and they have perforations so that when you pour the warm drinking water more than the area, it drains into a reservoir under.

This a single was about the sizing of a massive shoe box but made of strong silver, coated with wonderful engravings of dragons and flowers. Just after a bit of haggling I agreed to obtain it. In truth the haggling was half-hearted, because from the moment I saw it I realized I desired it. It was not low cost, but it was the variety of item you seldom – if ever – locate outdoors China, and when you do the rates are exorbitant.

It was extra cash than I had with me and I couldn’t use a credit card, so I left the store and spent a couple of hours seeking to rustle up adequate hard cash from ATMs and revenue changers to acquire it. I finally scraped just more than enough alongside one another, but in undertaking so I’d turned myself all about. When I went again to where by I considered the shop was, it just wasn’t there.

Large-density household locations in China are typically hundreds of rows of identical apartment structures, and I used hrs hoping to locate the shop but just retained going around in circles.

The crew and I drove out of town the next morning, and to this day each and every time I have tea from my wooden tea desk at home, I believe about the just one I didn’t reduce but could not obtain.