Morsels: Good Food Month is about to cook up a storm

Good Food Month countdown
It's August - and that means that it's just a few weeks until we find out what's in store for Good Food Month. For the first time, Canberra's getting its very own food festival in October. There will be foodie events, special meals and guest appearances by celebrity chefs. The final program will be revealed in Food & Wine later this month. Already we've discovered that one of the big celebrity appearances will be Frank Camorra from the successful MoVida restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney. You'll get the chance to see Camorra in action on Wednesday, October 22, when he presides over a special degustation at Parlour Wine Room in NewActon with head chef Brad Warton.

Mark your diaries
Another event to look forward as it sounds intriguing is "surprise Saturday lunch" at Poachers Pantry, where you'll sit down to a five-course degustation with matched wines. It's an alfresco lunch under their now-famous golden elm tree, which was featured in Tourism Australia's latest international advertising campaign. The Canberra Times' Good Food Month full program is out on August 27 in Food & Wine.

Fire and Spice
The Hyatt Hotel is putting on a Fire & Spice dinner on August 21 to showcase chillies from around the world in five spicy courses. Executive chef Nitin Kumar from the Hyatt will be joined by former MasterChef contestant Rishi Desai to produce five dishes with matching bespoke cocktails. It costs $145 a person. Thursday, August 21, starting 6.30pm at the Hyatt Hotel on Commonwealth Avenue, Yarralumla. Bookings are on 6269 8801.

Terrace high tea
The Burbury Hotel in Barton is now doing weekend high tea on the rooftop terrace, with cakes, tarts, savoury bites and scones. The tea service runs from 1pm-4pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It's $39 a person or $49 a person with champagne. Bookings are on 6163 1818 or email hightea@burburyhotel.com.au.

Cookbook of the week
This one's interesting. Frederique Jules, Jennifer Lepoutre and Mitsuru Yanase are the chefs behind NoGlu, a restaurant in Paris that's turned gluten-free cuisine into an art form. Good without Gluten is their new cookbook and aims to produce dishes that are attractive and tasty for people who are intolerant. Prepare to become familiar with guar gum, rice flour and potato starch as they take you through making your own gluten-free bread, pie pastry and dough. The recipes aren't your standard gluten-free fare - there's a pear and chocolate tartlet, goat's cheese and green olive muffins, madeleines, crumbed veal. All traditional sounding dishes made without gluten. Murdoch Books, $29.99.

Winemakers honoured
There's a place in the Australian winemakers' pantheon for Clonakilla's Tim Kirk and recent events are just confirmation of it. Last week wine judge James Halliday awarded the 2013 shiraz viognier a pretty big score - 98 points out of 100. And this week he's placed number 6 on our Good Food list of Australia's top 10 winemakers. Wine writer Jeni Port reveals the full list on pages 8 and 9 and gives us a profile of the gold, silver and bronze medallists. Kirk is already 2014's Winemaker of the Year, an honour conferred by the magazine Gourmet Traveller. The 2013 shiraz viognier is released on September 2.