Monthly Archives: March 2011

PLAYING WITH FIRE – Interview with Gus and Rebecca – growers, suppliers and manufacturers of Native Australian Foods – Surprising what’s right under our noses…

PLAYING WITH FIRE in the studio this morning… better warn the fire brigade.

HOT STUFF !!

We were lucky enough to be graced by the presence of Gus Donaghy and Rebecca Barnes on belly today. Too bad if you missed the chat but don’t despair, i’ll fill you in…

Gus and Rebecca are growers, suppliers and manufacturers of award winning Australian native foods and operate under the codename – PLAYING WITH FIRE.

Playing in the bush is where it all began actually, as they stumbled across some delicious wild berries on some land they were exploring. It made sense that with the right amount of love and direction, those wild, unruly delicious berries and many other native fruits, nuts, seeds and foods could be a source of seasonal pleasure that provide us with all the purest  nutrients nature intended.

ssssshhhhh just listen .....

Foods – from the lush tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, coastal sand dunes, cool mountains and arid desert – are growing in their natural environment yet we are blinded by flourescent lights and plastic coverings that protect our chemical laden food and we somehow fail to notice that we have forgotten what real food actually is…

I know where i'd rather be...

LOCAL !!! ORGANIC !!! WHOLEFOODS !!! NATIVE !!! SEASONAL !!! …

… this is the food we should be eating ! Spray free, loved and nutured… any or all of the above. Our bodies will crave what grows around us if you take the time to stop and listen. Maybe you can stop and listen to what Rebecca has to say about what it is they do at one of the markets. I found her at the Bangalow weekend market which is the 4th Sunday of the month.

In the meantime though i can fill you in on a thing or two…

All of their products – which range from Rainforest Fruit Jellies to Tea Infusions to Indigenous Spices and Flavourings to Gourmet Treats, oh and don’t forget the rainforest produce such as Davidsons Plums and Bunya Bunya Nuts – are as nature created them. Free of genetically modified ingredients, artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and highly nutritious. We are so blessed in this area with the quality and integrity of our food producers.

One of my favorite things about these guys is that they are so big on the educational side of things. Knowledge brings awareness, brings change, brings inspiration to people so that they may open their eyes and notice more, like what is around us on the very land we stand on. Get in sync with it. If you want to learn more, t hey offer a Plantation Consultation Service if you are a property owner wishing to investigate further into what might be growing or what you may choose to plant on your land in the future.

They’ve been PLAYING WITH FIRE in schools too by offering an Educational School Presentation where children from primary to high school are given a constructed memorable introduction to experience our local native food plants.

… and if all of that wasn’t enough they also offer Plantation Tours which is a 40 minute wander through mature plantation trees, learning while exploring different smells and tasting seasonal produce mmmm… did someone say tasting ??

These guys have such a great website. Find out about the significance of the name  PLAYING WITH FIRE and how it relates to the stories of the Aboriginal people. Let your mouth water as you see what’s on offer from the land around us…  go in and warm your self up !

Davidsons Plum

www.playingwithfire.com.au

Phone: +61 2 66887 9254

Email: enquiries@playingwithfire. com.au

Come on baby light my fire !!

Flaming love,

Sister Rasela

Belly street food special

ON AIR ON BYRON BAY’S BAYFM 99.9 ON MARCH 21, 2011

On belly today we hit the streets to check out fast and fabulous street food from around the world.  I was lucky enough to be in the great city of San Francisco recently, & recorded a talk about the street food revolution that has hit San Fran & many US cities recently.

But street food is on the rise around the world, as it gets faster and more urbanised, and is also seen as a way to preserve local food traditions.

According to  www.streetfood.org:

“From Akume in Togo to Pho in Vietnam, street food constitutes up to 40% of the daily diet of urban consumers in the developing world.

Yet, the rich cultural importance of street food is fragile.  Globalisation and urban development threaten these age-old traditions and, despite street food’s vital importance to local communities, there are serious health issues to contend with.

Consumers International (CI) is working to preserve street food life, so that local consumers, street food sellers and inquisitive travellers can enjoy these great dishes safely.

CI is campaigning for safe access to street food.

CI aims to:

Achieve recognition that street vending is a legitimate activity.

Persuade local authorities to improve access to sanitation and waste disposal for vendors.

Persuade local authorities to provide basic, accessible and affordable hygiene courses for vendors.”

So check out the website to find out more about their campaigns, and street food around the world.  They are looking for more content, and encourage schools and community groups to use their information.

And they have recipes!  (well only 3 so far).  I chose this one from Benin in West Africa because it is the first cooked one ingredient recipe I’ve ever seen, and it is vegan yet can’t possibly be good for you – but it sounds pretty delicious.

 

KLUI-KLUI : DEEP FRIED PEANUT BUTTER STICKS

Blend roasted unsalted peanuts until you get peanut butter.

Let it sit at room temperature for a day or until the solids settle to the bottom and the oil rises to the top.

Drain off the oil to use for frying or cooking.

Take the peanut solids and roll into stick shapes and fry in oil.

 

Yum!!!  Probably enough to give you a peanut allergy in a single hit, but it sounds dlish.

 

 

Tamara Palmer,Olivia Ongpin,Roger Feely and Brian Kimbell at Noise Pop in San Francisco - on belly candid and crappy cam, good camera died

 

CREATIVE STREET FOOD IN SAN FRANCISCO

Is going through a huge boom.  In the last 2 years all sorts of interesting entrepreneurs, cooks, chefs and food lovers have set up anything from a wok on wheels to massive specialised trucks – the food truck builders are going through a boom thanks to specially adapted gourmet fast food trucks costing anything up to US$250,000.

“We’re seeing demand for customization based on specific menus or food concepts, which may mean installing a pizza oven or a baking oven for cupcakes,” said Richard Gomez, customer sales engineer and plant controller at AA Cater Truck, the largest food truck manufacturer in the country. “There’s also a lot more emphasis on marketing and graphics. Trucks used to be just white, but now customers want to make their trucks look like celebrities.”

The people who were nice enough to let me record their talk this February come from a very different perspective.  They are involved with the underground, do it yourself, independent music and art scene.  Tamara writes about it on sfoodie and the feast.  Olivia has a gallery called Fabric8, where she shelters not-quite-fully-legal food vendors, at the same time as providing her punters with food that is vastly superior to the usual gallery opening nibbles.  Roger has a cart business called Soul Cocina,  is a trained chef, and also holds regular parties called Inside Out.  Brian is a curry vendor, his magic curry kart has even been all the way to the desert for Burning Man.

a man, a bike, woks and much mobile curry

To see a few of the characters involved with the street food scene in the US, check out www.roaminghunger.com

or this episode of a really entertaining web food series by 2 phat boys, that also includes things like the farmers market rapper

 

 

 

And what did I eat from all this feast of interesting stuff? Not much unfortunately, it was a quick visit, but I did have the best coffee I’ve ever had in the States from Curbside Coffee, and a deep fried chicken sandwich from this lot, parked outside the Noise Pop culture club – it was the only meal I needed all day really, lucky SF is a great walking city, but very tasty.

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure if this topic would be of interest locally, then a few days after I got back Sue Bennett in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote a story called ‘Sydney’s ready for street food’.  Both the story and the more than 80 comments talked about how much we need more street food, how great it would be to have outdoor good food vendors or markets.  And the barriers to it like regulations, hygiene concerns, traffic, complaints from restaurants and residents.

I’ve just talked to a friend who heard the show.  She’d love to see an evening outdoor market of stalls, a venue for all the creative locals with tasty ideas, we certainly have plenty.  San Francisco is a  city and we are a collection of villages, but in many ways we are similar – lots of artists, musicians, people from all sorts of backgrounds used to thinking outside the square, lots of wild and woolly diy, lots of good cooks too.  But I think one link that really makes it work in SF and could help here is the use of new(ish) technology, the twitter and yelp and facebook that helps the public find and recommend (or not)their favourite food vendors.  I was looking for food and found a whole music/art/underground festival with a few mouse clicks, they go together well.

a taste of the SF street food scene on belly Believe it or not, finally some belly audio on the belly site!  Well I’m excited… Learning all the time

and if you’ve only got a minute, listen to the cookie story sf_streetfood_cookie_story

get a string and start baking now – only problem is, we don’t have any tall buildings.

if you look for food carts or trucks, you may also get live, written to order poems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STREETSAFE SNACKING

A bit of  advice from various government and travel websites on tasting street food without ending up confined to the smallest room.

Where local tap water is not safe:
* only use bottled water to drink and brush your teeth and always check the seal
* do not put ice in drinks – freezing preserves germs, rather than kills them
* avoid uncooked food, including salads and fruit that you cannot peel

* in Africa they say to look for a neatly dressed, clean vendor
* wash your hands before you eat
* go with busy clean, organised places, look & smell
* eat food that is freshly and thoroughly cooked and served hot, not sitting around
* seafood dishes are notorious for causing intestinal problems. Smaller fish tend to be safer.

Obviously all this advice goes for restaurants too, I think sometimes more so as you can’t see the kitchen.  My only bad bug overseas was from  hotel room service.  According to the Australian government, you should also think about immunising against hepatitis A before going to countries where it is prevalent.

Love and chocolate klui-klui, sister T

MUSIC

Mo Horizons, Hit the road Jack/Pa ma estrada

Elvis, Hot Dog

Apricot Rail, Pouring milk out the window

Claude Hay, Get me some

Faux Pas, Chasing waterfalls

 

on air 14.3.11: Ocean Shores garden, dolce vita, white food and fab bread

Today on belly we welcomed the opening of  a new community garden, enjoyed a bit of opera, heard some of Susi Papi‘s many food stories, and shared our mutual love for fabulous no-knead bread.  And we heard Herbie Hancock tell how  listening to watermelon vendors as a kid resulted in his great hit “The watermelon Man”, that we play whenever we talk fresh fruit and veg.

Thank you very much to Susanne from the Byron Bay Community markets for sharing this clip.  The bellysisters will not rest until we convince the farmers marketeers to break into passionate song.  Great idea for getting people to go to the markets!

 

There is another video of this event here – wobblier, but you see how very beautiful the Valencia market is.

 

THE LAUNCH OF SHARA GARDENS

David Hall was on the show to talk about the brand new Ocean Shores community garden, to be called Shara Gardens.  It will be officially be launched on April 2, when all the paperwork is signed and ‘i’s duly dotted.  Speaking of which, they were lucky to have the support of the Mullumbimby Community garden, which made even the regulatory requirements a bit easier.

The garden is planned as an educational space (partly because they haven’t got enough land for everyone to have a plot on site), fully organic shared garden, and meeting place.

The launch will be Saturday April 2, from 1 to 3 pm, at the Ocean Shores Public School, at the very end of Shara Boulevard.  The Major will be there to entertain the adults, there will be stuff on for the kids too, everyone welcome including people from other areas interested in sharing information.  Check the local press for more details.

Whatever your skills or interests, you are needed: green thumbs, tradies, school kids, retired professionals to help in areas like grants and book keeping, and anyone who’d like to learn.  Call David on 6680 4728 for more details.

 

SUSI’S FOOD STORIES

Well just a few spoonfuls of what has obviously been a fascinating life.  I have known Susi since 1977, but by that time she had probably settled down a bit, and was importing her handsome Roman husband Luciano and 2 kids to the family farm in Camden NSW.  But before that she had quite a few adventures.  So often I discover great stuff about old (and new) friends by dragging them into the studio and turning on the mike.

Susi shared stories of being a kid in Australia after WW2,  when food shortages were still common.  Growing up with a dairying family she wasn’t hungry, but the diet wasn’t very varied.  Then her mother remarried and the family she was off  to Long Island, in the USA, where there was abundance, especially among the very wealthy Long Islanders, but the food was still very far from exciting “All the meals were white”.  But Susi still remembers fondly the revelation of her first artichoke.

Back to Australia and uni in the early 60s, and a fair bit of socialising in pubs with the infamous Sydney Push.  When everyone was thrown out at 6pm after the ‘6 o’clock swill’, food was the next best option.  Finally some colour and flavour, whether the choice was ‘the good Greek’ or ‘the bad Greek’.  And food that was ‘intentionally slow cooked’, as  opposed to cooked to death.

Then Dolce Vita Rome in 1963, the years depicted in the famous Fellini film, when the wild and beautiful people gravitated to Rome.  We only really managed to touch on that, and on the beautiful flavours of Roman food.  We detoured to Susi’s wonderful tomatoes for a few growing tips, and managed to squeeze in a mention of the one recipe she always tells friends to try, and my addiction ever since a belly guest, Nirava, put me on to it : the New York Times no knead bread.

Reasons this bread rules:

. It is very easy to make – takes longer to explain than to prepare

. It is slow risen so it is healthier, more digestible, very little yeast used, kind of a semi-sourdough

. No knead means no work

. You get crust, flavour and big air pockets

. It also works full of nuts and dried fruit, or seeds, or other flours

Original New York Times recipe.

 

Susi Papi with a beautiful double size loaf of no knead bread - about 3 days supply for Sister T

 

THE BELLY HOUSE NO-KNEAD BREAD

Having found and tried and adapted this recipe, I now leave it to my partner who EVERY TIME turns out a better bread than I can.  I think the secret is being very absent minded and forgetting it at every step, especially while it is cooking.  It probably helps that we have a really good, solid cast iron pot that holds the heat, and a standard electric oven that can’t get too hot.  Also making it twice a week (because I cry when there is none left), means much practice and no need to worry about quantities any more.  But even the first time, when I miscounted the cups of water and ended up with a ridiculous liquid mess,  still cooked to a fine tasting (though flat and funny looking) crusty loaf.  Yes, crusty bread in Byron Bay is possible!

3 cups bread flour; more for work surface [1]
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
cornmeal or wheat bran or more white flour

note : we now double the quantities because it keeps so well and I eat so much, to save work and electricity.  But try this size until you have mastered the only tricky bit, getting it into a heated pot without getting  burned.

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, [=1 and 1/2 cups, then keep another spoonful or 2 ready, see if it needs the extra water to come together – usually yes]
And stir until just blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with a plate. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, but preferably up to
18 [even 24], at room temperature. When surface is dotted with bubbles, dough is ready.

Lightly flour work surface. Place dough on work surface and sprinkle with more flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice.  Cover with bowl and let rest about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle just enough flour over work surface and your fingers to keep dough from sticking; quickly and gently shape dough into a ball.

Generously flour the bowl with plain flour, cornmeal/polenta flour, or wheat bran; place dough seam side down in bowl and dust with more flour. Cover with a  towel and let rise  until it has more than doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.   The original recipe calls for rising bread in between floured tea-towels, but we now have got tired of cleaning bread dough from tea towels and find this works just as well.

After about 1 1/2 hours, preheat oven to 220-230°C.  Place a large heavy covered pot, such as cast iron or Pyrex, in oven as it heats (for 20 to 30 minutes).  When dough has fully risen, carefully remove pot from oven.  Sprinkle some flour on the bottom of the pot.  Gently put dough into VERY HOT pot. Shake pot once or twice if dough looks unevenly distributed;  it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. [40 in our oven]

Uncover, and continue baking until browned, about 30 minutes. [tap to see if it feels crusty and hollow] Cool on a wire rack. In our climate it’s better to get it very crusty at this stage, anything else will lose the crust in a few hours.  If baked long enough, this is the only bread we have found here that will stay crusty – and not mouldy (!) for days.

[1] We use bakers’ white flour  (5 kg bags) or organic white as the base usually, sometimes 1 cup of wholemeal/kamut/semolina etc

Depending on the oven and the pot used, you may not need to leave the oven on so long before baking – but at least 10 minutes after it reaches 220-230 is good.

 

this bread is so crusty it should have dreadlocks

 

Susi has promised more stories in the near future – it seems she was in London when it was called Swinging, too – if I can find a vague food link, we’ll be there.

Love and chocolate sandwiches,

Sister T

 

MUSIC

Herbie Hancock’s story of “the Watermelon Man” is on the album “Watermelon Man, the ultimate Hancock!”

Sapore di Sale by Gino Paoli, 1963

On the sunny side of the street by Kermit Ruffins, from Putamayo presents kermit Ruffins

Cantiam, facciamo brindisi (Let’s sing, let’s toast) from the opera L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love), by Donizetti

Les Moissoneurs (the haymakers) by Couperin, performed by John Williams on guitar, from  “the baroque album”

on air March 7: Italian in season flavours, women’s voices & Danish Mardi Gras

It was a March hare’s mad tea party of a show today. Alison Drover was our guest fresh reporter and she was in an Italian mood, she prepared a whole lot of info on fruit and veg in season in March, especially zucchini eggplant and figs, then she couldn’t get to the studio so sister T has to pretend to be much blonder and nicer and better dressed (you can tell in the voice) and read out all Alison’s info and recipes. On the first belly in April though, she will be live on air in person. Also, straight from the belly lab, a wonderful new discovery, lychee choc tops, the belly bulletin featuring breast milk ice cream, stories from fabulous community radio food shows, lots of women’s voices to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s day, Danish mardi gras, and this week’s markets as usual.

ALISON’S GUEST FRESH REPORT : IN SEASON AROUND AUSTRALIA IN MARCH

This month March and I tend to think I am very Italian because it is the season for many fruits and vegetables, which characterize a lot of Italian cooking…  The fig, the zucchini flower, the eggplant, the zucchini, pumpkins and basil.

It is about using the seasons in abundance having a lot of something like eggplant and adding something special to it like an artisan cheese or some prosciutto but taking time to prepare the vegetables well. The Italians are inherently sustainable in the kitchen and supplement vegetables, which are low carbon footprint with small amounts of meat or often than not any meat and also make flavorsome cheeses, curds and intense pestos.

Zucchini Flowers – are at the markets however they disappear. Harris Farm and other groceries stock them however it is worth talking to your grower and even asking to reserve some. They are fragile and therefore you need to consider this with regards to price. They price can vary from anything to $4.00 a punnet upwards. The best incentive to grow food is to taste it.  The recipe that I have provided is for zucchini flowers and is a little “special” however worthwhile and then another that can be whipped up easily.

Corn …is ready and its arrival was celebrated in Corndale at the Chicken and Corn night in a few weeks ago at the Community Hall.

March is the month of figs. This is a time to seek them out and dedicate meals to them. I love figs grilled with cheese, salad, balsamic and roasted macadamias however they are good in so many ways especially on top of cakes.  Finding the Fig – figs are not going to be everywhere like the custard apple or the lime however this makes them more treasured. Look for them at local stores ie Bexhill Store has some great ones bought in by locals or the markets.  They have only a very short window at their peak so check out the local market now to see if you can get them. Figs grow quite well on the North Coast, despite coming from a more Mediterranean climate. The delicious plump fruits are highly perishable and can only be stored in the fridge for a few days. You can poach, grill and bake figs and add them to salads.

Custard Apples – love to grow in this region and are plentiful and often found on the side of the road at stalls as well as at the markets. More and more recipes for using them http://www.custardapple.com.au Peter Gilmore from the Quay restaurant in Sydney made them famous with the Custard Apple ice cream which is great.

Eggplants are glossy purple and in abundance. Many people overlook this vegetable however it is such diversity. The recipe I have included is for an eggplant stack with roasted tomato sauce, feta and basil. Whole eggplants can stored for two weeks in the fridge but once cut, they quickly discolour. Eggplant can be sliced and fried for use in lasagna but this method soaks up a lot of oil. Whole eggplants can be sliced lengthways and roasted for half an hour or so in a moderate oven until they collapse. The skin can be easily peeled off and the flesh pureed with tahini, lemon juice, a hint of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of cumin and a little olive oil and salt to make a brilliant dip – Baba Ganoush.  Of course you can mix eggplant with other ‘in season’ vegies such as tomatoes and zucchini to make a  ratatouille, which is basically a mixed, or roasted vegetables and onion in a tomato sauce. I take out all the tomatoes that I harvested in December from the freezer and mix them with the zucchini and eggplant.

Zucchini are robust and will keep in the fridge for a while and can be grated to make fritters with, chargrilled and layered like the eggplant, diced and fried with pasta or can be oven roasted with oil and garlic and rosemary make a great salad for a bbq.

March is the month for harvesting and eating beans, beetroot and Bok Choy. Beans of all sizes and shapes including green (or French), butter beans (yellow), scarlet (actually purple) and runner beans are in season now. One idea is steamed with basil, chopped boiled egg, macadamia oil and some red onion.

Baby beetroot should also be ready now and available at your local market. If you grow your own, you have the added bonus of using the tops – the smaller leaves in salads or the larger leaves in cooking, as you would use spinach. The roots are good sources of vitamins B1; B2 and the leaves are high in Vitamin C.

March is the month for:

• Making lime cordial so that you can top up your vitamin C in winter when limes are going to be very expensive

• Celebrating the fig – bake a cake, roast them poach them grill them

• Eating eggplant every which way and how

• Enjoying berries blueberries and strawberries before they disappear.

• Eating plums the last of the stoned fruit although in this area look for the sugar plums as they grow better here

Fruits in season this month:

• Apples – galas and red delicious have been in the shops for a few weeks, while Jonathons are coming off the trees at the moment

• Avocadoes – Hass are finishing up, but Shephards are coming into season

• Bananas

• Berries – this is the end of the season, but blueberries and blackberries are still very good

• Figs

• Fuji fruit

• Guava

• Mangoes – Kensington Prides have finished but the end of season Palmer mangoes are beautiful

• Pears – William, Sensation and Bosc

• Pineapples – Bethongas are still great

• Plums are gorgeous at the moment – particularly radiance and I’ve seen the first of the tiny sugar plums

• Pomegranates – mostly still fruit from the US, but the local supply will start later in March

• Quinces

• Rhubarb

Vegetables in season this month:

• Asian greens

• Beans

• Broccoli

• Brussels sprouts – the season is just starting

• Capsicums are good and cheap

• Cucumbers

• Chestnuts should be coming in later in the month

• Chillies

• Eggplant – the long thin Italian eggplants are particularly good

• Lettuce – although they’ve been small recently

• Mushrooms

• Okra

• Potatoes – Dutch cream and Sebagoes are the best

• Snow peas

• Sugar snap peas

• Sweetcorn

• Sweet potato

. Zucchini – excellent small zucchini available at the moment

ZUCCHINI FLOWERS STUFFED WITH FETA AND WHITE WINE BATTER – by Alison

Tips – If you open a bottle of wine mid week and don’t finish it take a freeze bag and freeze it and write across it “White White” . This is a great way of ensuring you have wine for cooking when you need it without opening a bottle especially

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil, to deep fry

140g feta  (try to go to the Farmers Market and get a local feta as it has so much flavor and you are supporting farmers who we rely on for the skills of traditional cheesemaking)

¼ cup parmesan, grated

2 Tbs thickened cream

6 zucchini flowers

1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup white wine

½ cup corn flour

Method:

Fill a saucepan half full with oil and place over a medium heat until hot enough to deep fry.

Combine the feta, parmesan and cream in a small bowl, season with salt and pepper. Spoon into a piping bag, pipe the mixture into the zucchini flowers and twist the flowers closed.

Place the flour, and white wine in a bowl, add a cup of water and using a whisk, whisk to make a batter.

Coat the zucchini flowers in corn flour, then carefully place in the hot oil. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden and crispy. Drain onto a plate lined with kitchen paper.   Sprinkle with salt to serve.

ALISON’S RAT (ATUILLE)

If you have some left over bread make it into breadcrumbs lay them on a tray with some olive oil on low heat to crunch them up and you can use this as a topping.  I also add some finely chopped rosemary and thyme from the garden which I have hung to dry.

5 red capsicum

70 ml olive oil

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced –(please use local garlic)

1 onion, finely chopped

4 cups peeled and diced tomatoes -passata

800 gm eggplant (about 2), cut widthways into 5mm-thick slices

400 gm green zucchini, cut widthways into 5mm-thick slices

6 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced horizontally

140 gm (2 cups) fresh coarse breadcrumbs or leftover bread finely chopped

100 gm finely grated cheddar or your choice hard cheese

2 tsp thyme leaves

Preheat oven to 180C. Place capsicum in a roasting pan, drizzle with 2 tsp olive oil and roast until skin is blistered (10-15 minutes). Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and cool.  When cool, peel and remove seeds (discarding peel and seeds), thinly slice lengthways and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and sauté until soft (5-7 minutes). Add tomatoes, season to taste and simmer, stirring occasionally to combine (4-5 minutes), then pour evenly into the base of a 3 litre-capacity deep baking dish.

Layer eggplant, overlapping slightly, over prepared base. Season to taste and repeat with zucchini and roast capsicum. Scatter anchovies over and finish with a layer of Roma tomatoes.

Combine breadcrumbs, cheddar or your choice of hard cheese and thyme in a bowl. Season to taste, then scatter over vegetables and drizzle with remaining olive oil. Pop in the oven and bake until top is golden about 55 minutes.

Alison Drover

 

FROM THE BELLY LAB

One other delicious thing in season this month is lychees, a bit of an odd up and down season this year, but there are quite a lot around at the moment.  Look out for small stone ones, a whole lot more flesh in even the small looking ones.   I had a lovely lychee martini in Brisbane recently, the best part was 3 frozen lychees on a stick as decoration/swizzle stick.  I took the idea back to the belly lab, and after much product testing, highly recommend to you…

LYCHEE CHOC TOPS

Peel and remove the stone from lychees, trying not to open them up too much.

Soak in a white spirit – white rum works well, vodka is drier and lets you taste the fruit more.  Skip for kids of course.

Freeze.  When frozen, coat in warm tempered chocolate and re-freeze.

Eat straight from freezer with great delight.

You could also experiment with filling the centre of the lychees with nuts, chocolate ganache, another fruit….too much is always good!

 

DANISH MARDI GRAS

Yes they are dancing in the streets in the biggest Carnival in the world today, in Rio, and all over Brazil and the Catholic world, celebrating life and love and rich food before we all get very serious and give up all animal products and sugar until Easter.

Most of us have heard of the Rio mardi gras, and the Sydney one, but have you heard about Danish mardi gras, or fastelavn?  It evolved out of the Catholic tradition, but as Denmark became mostly Protestant, it turned into “a time for children’s fun and family games” like whipping your parents.  It is celebrated the Sunday or Monday before Ash wednesday.

Some towns in Denmark hold  large Fastelavn  parades and festivities , including hitting a wooden effigy of a cat filled with sweets – which once used to contain an actual cat.

Of course there is a special food associated with Danish carnival, a sweet bun sometimes filled with cream.  It is made with potatoes, flour, egg, sugar and butter and deep fried.  Typical carnival food, sweet fried dough seems to be popular all over the world for mardi gras.

The other typical Danish tradition is a good flogging, now done mostly by children to wake up parents on the Sunday of fastelavn.  They use bunches of twigs or willow, decorated with sweets or feathers, egg-shells, storks and little figures of babies.  Apparently it started as a fertility ritual, when it was mainly the young women and the infertile who were flogged.  Then very pious parents would flog their kids to remind them of Christ’s suffering.  Now the kids get their revenge.  But the flogged ones always get a sweet bun in return.  If you are living at home with mum and dad, you could just go multicultural and be Danish for a day.

FASTELAVN BUNS – from this unadorned but great collection of Danish recipes, a lot from his mum, bless him.

* ½ pound potatoes

* 1 cup potato water

* 1 package dry yeast

* ½ cup water

* 2 cups flour — sifted

* 2 tablespoons soft butter

* 1 egg — beaten

* ¾ cup sugar

* ½ cup warm water

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 5 cups flour

Cook potatoes. Drain and reserve potato water. Mash potatoes. Mix mashed potatoes, potato water, yeast cake soaked in the 1/2 cup water, and the 2 cups flour. Let stand overnight.

In the morning add the butter, the egg and the sugar, and cream well. Add the lukewarm water, salt and the 5 cups flour. Beat well. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Punch down and roll ½ inch thick. Cut into rounds with a cookie cutter and drop each round into hot fat, browning on both sides. Remove and drain on paper towels.  Roll in sugar while still warm.

AND TO CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

I played a few minutes from a couple of my favourite community radio food shows.  Because on community radio you can be involved no matter your gender, colour, sexual orientation or fanciability.

This is a story from the American network NPR, by those other fabulous sisters, the Kitchen Sisters, about an indomitable woman who fed and helped the black civil rights campaigners, including ML King.

And this is from the Melbourne station 3CR, a piece from their long running food show ‘Food Fight’.  If you are chasing up info on all the benefits of coffee grounds for your garden, or you are thinking of starting up a coffee grounds recycling system where you are, the website is http://groundtoground.org/

 

AND FINALLY …. sometimes it’s hard to believe belly only goes for one hour:

THE BELLY BULLETIN

CARE Australia is  launching the Walk In Her Shoes challenge  in celebration of the 100th year of International Women’s Day.  Women and girls make up 60 per cent of the 1.4 billion people currently living in poverty. Millions walk over six kilometres a day in search of food, water and firewood. This leaves little time for anything else.  So if you want to Help break this cycle of poverty, Walk 10,000 steps per day for one week and get sponsored – the week is Monday 28 March to Sunday 3 April 2011.
You can raise money towards firewood, water, food, health care, safety or education to reduce the burden.  Go to www.careaustralia.org.au for details.

In other news, the 2 big supermarkets are fighting over milk, Mallams has closed down in Mullum, but I’d rather tell you about life-saving honey, soggy pizza and breast milk ice cream.

Honey made from an Australian native myrtle tree has been found to have the most powerful anti-bacterial properties of any honey in the world and could be used to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections that commonly occur in hospitals and nursing homes.   The myrtle is (leptospermum polygalifolium), which grows along the Australian eastern seaboard from the south coast of NSW to Cape York.  The honey is being tested by a Brisbane-based research group.  Meantime cover yourself in honey, it can’t hurt, just watch out for ants.

What does it take to break the  the record for the world’s longest pizza?   One-and-a-half tonnes of flour, 650 kilos of mozzarella, 1,500 litres of water, 30 or 40 kilos of salt and about 15 kilos of yeast, also one-and-a-half kilometres of chicken wire, and a special oven that can cook one-and-a-half metres of pizza per minute.
And no rain.  So maybe they never should have tried this in Melbourne, especially this year.
More than 40 chefs from Melbourne pizza restaurants were working since midnight last weekend on Lygon street, to make the 1.2-kilometre long pizza and were halfway through when rain-affected soggy dough brought the attempt to an end.
The pizza was going to be distributed to charities across Melbourne.
Judges from the Guinness World Records Association were there to decide if the pizza broke the previous record which is held by Poland.
Organisers say they might try again next year.

On my last belly show I told you about how popular baby food is with many adults.  Now you can go straight for the ultimate baby food.  A cafe in London has started selling ice cream made from women’s breast milk.  It is called Baby Gaga, and it’s made with milk expressed by 15 women who replied to an ad on an online mothers’ forum.  One of the milk donors, Victoria Hiley,  said that if adults realised how tasty breast milk was then more new mothers would feel happier about breastfeeding.  She expressed the milk at the cafe and it was pasteurised before lemon zest and vanilla pods were added as it was churned. Ms Hiley, is paid $23 for every 10 ounces of milk.
The man behind Baby Gaga icecream, Matt O’Connor, said he could not understand people being squeamish about the product. “If it’s good enough for our children, it’s good enough for the rest of us,” he said.  “Some people will hear about it and go yuck – but actually it’s pure organic, free-range and totally natural.”
Already a pretty good story, but now it’s much better because singer Lady Gaga has had her lawyer send a stern legal letter telling the ice-cream makers to : “cease and desist from in any other way associating with Lady Gaga any ice-cream you are offering,” .  The letter accuses The cafe of “taking unfair advantage of, and riding on the coat-tails of” Lady Gaga’s trademarks in a manner that is “deliberately provocative and, to many people, nausea-inducing”.
The ice-cream was a big hit. One serve costs $22.50 and it’s brought out by waitresses wearing flamboyant outfits, a bit of a  Lady Gaga trademark.  But breast milk icecream is now off the menu because Westminster City Council seized it for health and safety checks.  “We are taking the ice-cream away for samples,” a spokeswoman said.  “It’s not a ban. The owner has voluntarily agreed not to make any more or sell any more until we’ve got all the results.”  Breast milk could carry viral infections, including hepatitis, she explained.
The manufacturers have said they use the same screening procedures as blood donation centres or milk banks in London.

 

MUSIC

Still celebrating wonderful crazy community radio,  the tracks I played today were from a compilation done to support a Sydney community radio licence aspirant station that unfortunately never became permanent, Out Fm.

From “Inside Out”, Warner records 1999

authority over the fish –  by artificial

flowers in the sky – by boo boo and mace

miss del ray – by jo jo smith

 

love and chocolate cake, sister T