The Electric Peacock Festival has announced that they’re bringing down the amazing electronic acts Basement Jaxx and Chicane this December 16th. These are not third tier DJs or saccharine pop acts, Basement Jaxx and Chicane are both artists that I own (have) music by and which have gotten serious airplay worldwide.

One of my favorite blogs is Rice & Curry, a food blog that mostly covers Sri Lanka. It’s interesting stuff, and all quite cookable. Thus I was pleased to see that the author, S.H. Fernando, has published a cookbook – Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking – which seems to be out now. It’s gotten some good reviews:

Peter Kuruvita‘s ‘My Sri Lanka‘ recently screened on Australia’s SBS network. I’ve only seen bits on YouTube but what I dig is the amazing setups. He’s able to cook on the beach, in the hills, places where I can barely open a bag of chips. The recipe above is for fried fish and a simple salad. I think he just caught the fish and it looks delicious.

Kumar Pereira gave a nice interview to the Sunday Times this weekend. He ‘lost’ in MasterChef, but his illustrated cookbook has been picked up by a publisher. Apparently he has a recipe for some sort of kiribath sushi. In last week’s contest to cook for the Dalai Lama, Dani won with a Sri Lankan ‘thali’, with a Sri Lankan on the panel (Shanaka Fernando).

Basically, Top Chef is tense and bitter, and MasterChef is tense and sweet. People are quite nice on the latter and they still produce great competitive food. People are so mean on Top Chef, and they produce food that I don’t understand. Even in its Australian incarnation, I think MasterChef is the best. Mainly cause it doesn’t bring out the worst in people.