On air on Byron Bay’s community radio station, bayfm 99.9, on May 28, 2012
On a lovely sunny day in May I visited Jude and Michel Fanton, directors of the wonderful biodiversity foundation, Seedsavers. We had green tea perched on the very second hand cement blocks which edge their garden beds. The tea was a discovery during their recent travels, liasing with seed, permaculture, and other green groups around the world. Summer is too hot to garden around here they say. But right now is the perfect time. Walking around the veggie patch with Jude until the mosquitoes drove us away, I started to feel much better about my “failures”, all those plants that will just not thrive in our humid, and occasionally very hot climate. And about taking the easy way out in the garden. The people who taught lots of us about collecting, drying and saving seeds now even often let the plants sort it out on their own, and somehow manage to have an exciting, varied and mostly vegetarian diet from their not particularly large patch, even though they go away from Byron Bay so often. Jude calls it ‘using the soil as our seed bank’. I also love the expression ‘bandicooting’, which means foraging around the patch getting bits and pieces at various stages of maturation. The best idea of the day though was the solution to all those sad, mouldy zucchini plants that coastal gardeners normally need to bathe in asses milk and prayers to have any hope of picking a few sad little fruits. Just give up on them altogether and grow pumpkins, which are basically weed hardy around here. Pick the flowers, the shoots, and the half grown pumpkins, skin and all, to use as zucchini. I had to ask Jude to repeat that one. Yes half size pumpkins, so of course depending on the variety we are talking a whole lot of sizes, can be cooked as if they were zucchini. I will certainly be going into the belly lab and investigating that one.
Jude had many more ideas on growing and using vegetables that grow easily in our area. If you would like to follow us around the veggie patch, click on the audio links below.
When the dark and the mosquitoes drove us away from the veggie patch, we went inside and Jude talked about two of her favourite perennials, pigeon peas and lima beans, which are some of the staples in her diet. They also make very attractive barriers around the vegetable garden. Lima beans are a vine, and pigeon peas a very attractive small tree. Jude grew her lima beans on an old metal bunk bed frame. Possibly and idea if you can’t get your large unwanted items to the tip? Of course make sure they aren’t made of something that will leach nasties into your soil.
Click on the audio links below to hear Jude Fanton talk about two of her favourite pulses.
If you like stuff that’s so bad it’s good you’ve got to love Eurovision – and some of it is actually just good. Not much admittedly. The second place getters this year had to feature on belly – they danced and sang and baked biscuits! And they were totally gorgeous Russian grannies.
In fifth place, a song that was just wild and beautiful, sung by a woman who had stepped straight out of a dark fairytale – and a pretty fab way to wear dreads. Go Albania.
I also love the costumes and wild cockroach dancing by the Moldovan entry. Check it out, may have to play it soon, but it’s all about the look really.
Also on belly this week:
Walk the earth, Bianca Meyer
And Dirtgirl, a belly fave, Good Morning and Dig It
On air on Byron Bay’s community radio station, bayfm 99.9, on May 21, 2012
A big thank you to the wonderful Sister Ros Elliott, who took the mike to you to find out some of of your favourite winter comfort food as the socks and jumpers come out of hiding all around the Northern Rivers, chatted about food security, and gave our ears a taste of beautiful rosy guavas. To give your palate a taste too, try her recipe below. And look out for Ros again on belly on June 4.
GUAVA CUSTARD FLAN – PHOTO AND RECIPE BY ROS ELLIOTT
Sweet pastry for 24cm flan tin
3 large (600g) guava, all seeds removed & chopped
1/2 cup thickened cream
4 eggs
2/3 cup castor sugar
Process all ingredients till smooth.
Pour into uncooked pastry case and bake 1 1/4 hours in moderate slow oven.
Test custard cooked by inserted knife comes out clean.
Brush top of custard with guava jam and decorate with fresh guava crescents.
[For a belly shortcrust pastry recipe, by our pie-eyed bellysister Deanna, see here]
On air on Byron Bay community radio bayfm 99.9 on May 14, 2012
Today belly was all about bio-diversity, about getting down and dirty and protecting our food supplies, and sharing our knowledge. And enjoying the delicious fruits of our labours of course. Shortly Jude Fanton, director of Seedsavers, told us about food networks they recently visited in New Zealand, Europe and Malaysia. Portuguese cabbage forests and monkeys that help make our fruit more delicious, among other stories. Then Suveran Dewsnap, head gardener at Starseed, talked about his dream of edible food forests, eating weeds, and adapting to our environment. To finish the show, two more wonderful artists from the very tasty food themed exhibitions at the Ballina Community Gallery.
FRESH REPORT : persimmons finishing, strawberries starting, lots of mandarins, dragonfruit, passionfruit
mint & fresh young ginger -maybe time for healthy cold busting juices. Week 3 markets include Mullumbimby this Saturday, Uki and Nimbin on Sunday.
SEEDSAVERS ON TOUR
Jude Fanton is director with husband Michel of Seedsavers, founded in Byron Bay in 1986 to protect non-hybrid,traditional seeds and plant varieties, and to set up and assist non-profit seed networks and exchanges, here and abroad. These days they travel a lot, learning and teaching ways to protect biodiversity with like minded people all over the world. Their latest journey was to New Zealand, and last summer they travelled in Portugal, Spain, France and Malaysia. There are more than 700 videos of their travels, and lots of seedsaving advice, on the Seedsavers YouTube channel here.
Jude spoke about caldo verde, the Portuguese national soup, or even national dish. It means green soup, and is based on cabbage, preferably kale (or Portuguese tree cabbages). Even if you can’t get hold of any tree cabbages, kale is pretty easy to get now (at least if you are lucky enough to live around here). Just soften some chopped onion in olive oil, then add chopped garlic. Then potatoes and stock or water. If you like meat, traditionally some chorizo sausage goes in now, and some towards the end. Cook until the potatoes are almost ready and falling apart, whizz the soup smooth if you prefer, then add lots of finely shredded kale and more chorizo. The kale should still keep a bit of texture, not be really soft. You can also add herbs like mint and parsley towards the end of cooking.
FOOD FORESTS
Suveran Dewsnap is head gardener at Starseed Gardens , a non profit organisation with all sorts of interesting projects, on among others, bio-char, aquaculture, hemp, and his passion for many years now, food forests.
Starseed Gardens will have workshops on planting a food forest , in Byron Bay in June. This is what Suveran says about the importance of food forests.
“The beauty of food forests, in my view, is not just that they provide a variety of produce on an ongoing basis, when established, but, more importantly, as a permanent resource ( as opposed to annual cropping ). They are an ongoing propagation resource base that would be so vital in the event of a food supply crisis, with most tropical and subtropical perennial staples being easily reproduced by cuttings and tubers (sweet potato, cassava, Taro, Arrowroot and yam ) or abundant seed (as in the case of perennial legumes such as Lima beans ) Thus with some collaboration and a local knowledge base communities around the shire would be able to provide themselves with abundant food, relatively quickly. This, in my view, is the essence of food security. In the event of a natural disaster or disruption to the transport system there is probably no more than 2-3 days food on the supermarket shelves, and so, in an increasingly uncertain world, I now feel a sense of urgency to share the knowledge I have accumulated, and will be running a series of workshops around the country over the next 12 months, starting at Starseed gardens on the 1st-3rd of June. This workshop will cover various strategies for achieving a secure locally produced food supply including perennial food crops, the development of a food forest network across the shire, edible weeds, community collaboration, planting hardy plants for winter and preparing the ground for spring planting, followed by a comprehensive food forest planting workshop from August 31st to Sep 2nd which will include a range of seeds and cuttings to begin creating other food forests throughout the district.”
RECIPE – TARO WITH MISO AND TOFU, from Suvi
adapted from a recipe on www.justhungry.com
Suveran brought a bag of taro roots – some to plant, some to eat. Lucky subscriber Bridget, who won them, is attempting to goat-proof a spot for the taro patch. He suggests this recipe. You can buy taro easily in local shops and markets.
5 or 6 smallish peeled taro roots
1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled
1 cup Japanese dashi stock or water
2 tbs white miso paste
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 tbs raw sugar
Cut the taro into chunks. Bring to a boil taro, dashi or water, tofu and sugar. Cook on medium heat until almost all liquid is gone, then add the soy sauce and the miso (thinned to liquid consistency with a little water). Simmer on low heat for a few minutes. Serve hot or cold.
BELLY BULLETIN
Coming up this Thursday 17th & all weekend, the Noosa International Food Festival, chefs from all over Australia, Hong Kong and Turin, lots of good music. On the June long weekend ABC Delicious magazine is organising a Byron Bay gourmet extravaganza, lots of visits to local producers and restaurants. ( See here) They both sound good if you have a fair bit of cash to spare.
On in Ballina right now and free :
From Wednesday 2 May – 27 May 2012 (from the Gallery website)
“Table Manners: a spectacular installation of handmade ceramic dinnerware by ceramic artists Suvira McDonald, Malcolm Greenwood and Sue Fraser; textile artist Kirsten Ingemar; Ikebana artist Di Morison and food stylist Monique Guterres-Harrison (Seaweed Cuisine). Curated by Suvira McDonald.
Short and Sweet: exquisite pastel drawings depicting kitchenware and high tea treats by Katka Adams.
Produce-d: watercolours of farmers market produce by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Each Saturday for one year the artist visited her local farmers market (the Bangalow Farmers Market) and photographed her basket of produce. These were then translated as beautiful watercolour paintings and published in a recipe book, with recipes from market stall holders.
Food for Thought: still life paintings and mixed media by Barbara Zarletti and Peter Mortimore. Their contrasting styles offer exquisite views of quiet arrangements of food and kitchenware.”
Last week on belly we talked about food and painting with the presenter of the Bayfm arts show, Karena Wynn-Moylan. I hope you have a chance to check out last week’s post here with karena’s beautiful paintings and lots of seasonal recipes from her artistst’s cookbook. Today I played interviews I recorded at the exhibition opening night with 2 other artists, Kirsten who works with fabric,and sound, and Peter who made great collages in honour of his mother’s old cookbooks.
Apart from the fado track, all the music today was thanks to the great community radio resource, airit, maintained by Amrap, which supports Australian musicians, and community radio stations. No money at all from the Federal government in this year’s budget, very disappointing, but they say they will keep the music coming. Senator Conroy is the one to contact if you want to support amrap.
Foreign Language by Flight Facilities, from Foreign Language Remixes
Fado Curvo by Mariza, from Nu Europe
Maybe When The Sun Comes Down, XTREMIX By Cloud Control Richard In Your Mind
Forest Eyes by Jinja Safari , from the Jinja Safari EP
Words and images by Great Earthquake, from Drawings
On air on bayfm 99.9 community radio Byron Bay on May 7, 2012
"February" - from "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan
So one day the artist went to the market… The far North of NSW has attracted artists for many years, and now we have a lovely fresh produce market pretty much every day, so maybe it was inevitable that they would come together and create beautiful things.
Bayfm’s Arts Canvass presenter, Karena Wynn-Moylan, was inspired by the beautiful produce of her local Bangalow farmers market. She photographed a year of fruit and veg, and documented it in watercolours and oils. She also asked the farmers for their favourite simple recipes, and has done a lovely artist’s cookbook. See below for some recipes.
We also have potters and fabric artists and cooks and ikebana magicians, and people on a mission to bring colour to our tables. I was lucky enough to go to an exhibition in Ballina that is on all month and brings many of these people together. I would really encourage you to go, the gallery itself is a lovely place, with a cafe and big old trees to sit under.
Here are some details :
Three Exhibitions are on, all on and around food and the table, until Sunday 27 May 2012
At : the Northern Rivers Community Gallery, 44 Cherry street Ballina
ph 6681 6167 free entry
But I would be going along to this weekend’s Table Manners Makers’ Market, which has demos of ceramic hand-building and wheel-throwing by potters Suvira McDonald and Malcolm Greenwood. You can also learn how to paint or draw your food. Thank you very much to Karena for giving a place in her watercolour workshop on May 20 to one of our lovely subscribers. If you’d like to go, ring the gallery. (It is $65pp inc. materials, 9.30 to 2pm).
If you can’t get to the exhibition, Karena’s number 1 bit of advice for anyone starting on painting or drawing still lives (aka food around here) is to think of the light.
And the lovely Miss May, Alison Drover of Fork in the Field, as well as lots of in season deliciousness for May, also had a crop of sustainable produce inspired, and very easy on the wallet, ideas for making your table and your food look beautiful.
Miss May's mandarins
Miss May Alison Drover
Preserve and conserve – yes it is the time for citrus much needed in winter.
Make marmalade, preserve lemons make compote and candied peel.
Find out more about my classes at the Byron Community Centre coming up next weekend
This is also the time to save seeds from your summer crops so that you have them for the next year. Saving seeds helps safeguard the food security of the plant and is also a great way to ensure that the seeds you sow grow.
MANDARIN COMPOTE RECIPE – enough for breakfast for the week
· 20 mandarins
· 1 cinnamon quill
· 3 tablespoons raw honey
· 1 sprig thyme
15 ripe and sweet peeled mandarin. Separate them mandarin segments. I did not remove the transparent skin of the mandarin pieces, but I did open them to remove any seeds and to allow for the juice to come out while marinating them. Put the mandarins in a medium saucepan and cover with water marinate for 1 hour. Add honey and thyme, bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes, adding water when necessary to keep the mandarins covered at all times.
Remove and serve with yogurt for breakfast cold or warm slightly. The compote can be used as a side serve to a winter pudding or plain cake. You can also vary it by adding apples!
A big thank you to Karena for the permission to reproduce some pages from her artist’s cookbook, “Produce-d”. The originals are double page spreads with the basket of produce paintings by Karena on the left, and the recipe on the right.
from "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan - leeks and mandarins are definitely in season - and following the rose petals on the footpath is usually the easy way to find the Bangalow Farmers Market
From "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan
From "May" in "Produce-d" By Karena Wynn Moylan
From "May" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Heather and her family sell tomatoes at the Bangalow and Byron Farmers Markets. They often have seconds which need to be used pretty quickly. This is a great recipe to use whenever the rain gods are a bit rough on the tomato patch.
Check out more of Karena’s art on her website (I particularly love the Woodstock turnip from Produce-d). There is also a recipe by Karena herself in the book. I haven’t managed to get the pecan pikelets one from her yet – maybe ring her up while Arts Canvass is on (Thursdays 9 to 11 am) and beg her and the rest of the pecan fiends on her street in Bangalow to share with the rest of us – apparently they get together and cook and eat at the drop of a hat, under a big pecan tree in Bangalow. If your street or neighbourhood does something like that, us bellysisters would love to hear about it. Meantime, here’s Karena’s lovely sweet potato recipe.
KARENA’S SWEET POTATO AND FETA BAKE
A good mix of white, purple and orange sweet potatoes
I large onion ( Spanish or purple)
6 cloves of unpeeled garlic
Fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs
Sea salt, ground pepper and Paprika
Feta Cheese
Parsley
Peel the potatoes if you wish or just scrub, then chop into bite sized pieces and place in a
large baking dish sprinkled with olive oil.
Add cloves of whole garlic and fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs.
Season with salt and pepper and ground paprika.
Toss together to coat pieces well.
Bake at 200c for about 30 mins or until pieces are slightly crispy.
5 mins before serving add cubed fetta cheese, return to the oven to soften.
To serve squeeze baked garlic over veges and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley
