Thome with a few of her magical dishes

Yes, what a mix on today’s show!

It was a big bouncing belly today – 2 hours, as Anna & Nicole couldn’t bring you their show birth pregnancy & beyond, so belly spread out.  But  I collected several stories about baby food,  & the kids of all ages who are getting into it, Leah Roland from the Bangalow  Cooking School came on to talk about getting kids to eat a varied diet, & we  started a new belly series on cooking with local native ingredients – finger limes today. For much of this first hour on belly we explored one of Australia’s most popular cuisines, Thai, with the woman who first brought the food of Thailand to Byron Bay, Thome Evans. And Sister Nancy Jo, who brought Thome to the belly kitchen.  NJ used to beg to work with Thome, offering to work for free, for the sake of getting access to her delicious food.  Apparently Thome’s employees were all very faithful, because they were all addicted to the flavours.

She grew up on the family farm near the ancient city of Lopburi, about 150 k north of Bangkok, with her 13 sisters and 1 brother.  They used to grow everything that they ate, plus rice to sell.  As they were along way from doctors and hospitals, like many Thais they also used food plants as medicine, and to avoid getting sick in the first place. The rice fields also provided frogs and little snails that were healthy and delicious as they only eat the tops of the rice.  Healthy and delicious seems a good way to sum up her cooking.  Thome came to Australia in 1975 with her husband.  Her restaurant in Byron Bay was called the Lotus.  She always used to add lots of extra herbs, and go out to the dining room to explain to customers why they should eat the various dishes, and why various ingredients would keep them young and healthy.  I can’t imagine anyone being able to resist, disobey or fail to return.

A few things we learned from Thome:

* Prepare Thai ingredients in a mortar, not a food processor.  The food processor makes the liquid come out, it will change the texture and the taste.
To make it easier, get the largest possible mortar and pestle.  The exercise is good for you, it will give you good arm muscles.  And if there is chilli in there, cover the mortar with your hand so you don’t get chilli flying up into your eyes

* You can use olive oil in Thai food, both Thome and Nancy Jo use only that

* A 15 minute bath in turmeric and tamarind (the jar paste is ok) will give you lovely soft skin and keep you young

* Small green Thai eggplants grow easily in our area.  They look just like tobacco.  You can get the seeds by mail order easily.

* Coriander keeps you young too, and you should always use the roots as well.

Actually most of Thome’s ingredients keep you young, especially everything in this lovely recipe.

WILD CURRY By Thome Evans

Wild Curry is a combination of fresh ingredients that can be accessed found at farmers markets or specialty Asian grocery shops. This curry is said to be healing as it contains ingredients that keep the blood pressure and sugar levels down as well as many other benefits to health. Therefore a kind of ‘cleansing tonic” food.

For 4 people

THE PASTE

1 x long red chilli (Big Jim) chopped
6 x dried chilles (first soaked in water for 20 min then chopped)
1 or more birdseye chilli finely chopped (optional if you want it hotter)
6 x slices of fresh galangal root
5 x cloves of fresh garlic chopped
6 x slices of fresh ginger
2 x bulbs (not leaves) lemongrass sliced fine
1 x teaspoon cumin powder (fresh can be obtained at Indian or Asian grocers)
6 x slices fresh turmeric root (or 1  tsp powder)
1 x large red onion chopped (brown onion optional)
1 x large coriander root chopped
Pinch of Krachai (optional)
2 x tbs olive/veg oil (not peanut)

Other Ingredients

500 g thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork or prawns
1 tsp Thai fish sauce, or soy sauce if you prefer
vegetables of your choice, e.g.:
1/2 cup Pea eggplants or 1 regular purple eggplant angle sliced in strips
250 grams green beans
1 medium capsicum sliced
1 cup bamboo shoots sliced. (Can be bought fresh in sealed bags at Asian grocery)

fresh basil

Pound all paste ingredients in a mortar and pestle until roughly blended. Do not use a food processor as it will make the curry too thin.

Sauté paste in a wok with enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan to release fragrance. Add your chosen meat.
Add tsp of Thai fish sauce to taste. Then add vegetables
Stir fry until all veg are soft but not over cooked.
Add sprigs of fresh basil to taste just before the veggies are done, to wilt briefly.

Serve with steamed rice

Songkran stalls

Thome at Songkran

If you would like to enjoy a whole lot of FREE Thai food, along with performances of traditional Thai music, and lovely chanting by Buddhist monks, traditional alms giving and pouring water for the Songkran New

Year celebration, get along to:
the Bodhi Tree Forest Monastery
78 Bentley road, Tullera (via Lismore)
call 6628 2426 or www.buddhanet.net/bodhi-tree

It looks like a gorgeous way to get to know real Thai culture.  Everyone is welcome.
And you can meet the lovely Thome!

Hopefully one day we can get her back on belly to share her recipe for the best fishcakes in the universe (according to NancyJ0)

BELLY BULLETIN

A new Farmers Market is starting up in Murwillumbah, from April 6 at the usual market time of 8 to 11am.  It will be held in the Dairy Pavilion at the Murwillumbah Showground, and will be called the Caldera Farmers Market.
The name ‘caldera’ comes from the huge volcanic formation in the Tweed region, and from the Caldera Institute, which is attempting to assist sustainable development in the region.  All sellers must be growers, within 50 km. of Murwillumbah.   To contact the new manager,  Deborah Fuller, please call o401 306 818 or email deborah.fuller@bigpond.com

And in more good news, a great English concept has just been launched in Australia.  It is called ‘Landshare‘, and is all about getting together people with land who for one reason or another can’t work it productively, or just feel like sharing  it, people with time and energy but no land, and lovely helpful people who can contribute skills or tools or knowledge.  It is part of the great movement back to the veggie patch, which is hampered by the fact that many of us, even out here in regional Australia, don’t have any room to plant veggies or keep chooks or bees, and we’ve also never learned how to do it properly.  Go to the website to see who has already joined up in our area and to find out more about it: www.landshareaustralia.com.au It has only been going for a week in Australia and more than 400 people have already joined up.  Including 3 in our area so far.

Melon Skiing, Melon Bungy, Melon Bullseye, Melon Ironman, Melon Chariot, Pip Spitting, Melon Eating races, and of course Melon Head Smashing (cracking open the watermelon with the head only – no hands or assistance).  Yes it can only be the Biennale of the big red fruit, the Chinchilla watermelon festival in Queensland.  We love it on belly, but this year we really thought it would be cancelled with all the talk of destroyed watermelons.  But you can’t keep a good Queensland melon farmer down.  Two floods, 85% of the crop lost, homes destroyed, and they still held the festival over the weekend.  Normally Chincilla produces 1/4 of Australia’s watermelons.  But it makes sense that it went ahead, as it was introduced in 1994 to cheer people up after terrible drought.  No news yet if the head only melon smashing record of 47 melons in 1 minute has been broken.   But we can tell you that there are more than 1,200 known varieties of watermelons , they can have red, yellowish or white flesh and take 3 months to grow.  Lots more info and a very dubious chicken watermelon pasta recipe at melonfest.com.au

FINGER LIMES

On the outside they look like stretched cumquats, on the inside like translucent caviar – little citrus bliss balls.  They are in season right now and they are the first delicious local native featured in this new series, I’m thinking of calling it Leah’s local legends.  Leah Roland from the Bangalow Cooking School will be in about every 4-6 weeks to talk about using a great Northern Rivers ingredient.

Keeping finger limes : squeeze out balls and freeze them in a shallow container.  Use straight from freezer.

Season – high summer!  This year they have been around for about a month and should stay to at least end of March.

Using zest – forget it, it is very very bitter and thin.

A few recommendations from Leah:

In kids’ lunchboxes to just split and suck or to add to lunch, well packaged portion size citrus seasoning.

As delicate highlights, or they will get lost (although sister B enjoyed them at a friend’s in mashed potato)

On raw seafood and beef, on oysters.

In chocolate truffles…mmm

More info: www.wildfingerlime.com

KIDS FOOD PREFERENCES

We thought we’d better talk about kids and food since we were replacing the pregnancy show.  If your kids don’t like something, don’t despair, Leah says you may have to present a new food up to 15 times before they like it.  And we all agree the old way of forcing kids to finish everything weren’t so good, and may turn them off particular foods for life.   Maybe start working on their taste buds while they are still in your belly.  Have a look at this paper by Gwen Dewar.

It looks like a baby’s food preferences for both healthy food  and alcohol can be affected by what mum is having, both while pregnant and breastfeeding.  But don’t worry – one hamburger and a beer will not turn bub into an obese alcoholic.

Lots of great info on preparing baby food at home, and what is worth spending money on as far as products marketed for babies, like special milks and yogurts, on the consumer website choice.  They also publish a book on this.

And for bub’s first curry:

According to choice, you shouldn’t salt food for baby though.  Lots more Indian baby food videos on youtube.

And then there were all those

ADULTS EATING BABY FOOD!

Most of this is from an article in the English Guardian newspaper of March 2010.

The world’s largest baby food manufacturer, Hipp, has said an increasing number of adults are turning to its pre-cooked, pureed meals because they find them easier to swallow and digest.  About a quarter of those who eat the German firm’s 100 varieties of pulped meals – from apple and cranberry breakfast to vegetable and beef hotpot – are adults, it says.  Claus Hipp said in recent years his firm’s products had grown in popularity, particularly among elderly people,  stewed apple is a favourite.   He said the 50-year-old company – the world’s largest producer of baby food, with 46% of the market – was increasingly turning its attention to the adult market rather than babies as Europe’s population ages.
As well as the elderly, users include calorie-conscious new mothers and Sportsmen and women looking for a light meal.  Baby food is also a bit of a diet craze in Hollywood apparently.
Eileen Steinbock, of the British Dietetic Association, said pureed food could benefit people whose ability to swallow had been greatly reduced through old age, dementia or a stroke, and is already in widespread use in care homes.  But people who can still chew and swallow should continue to do so for as long as possible, she added.  Pureed food contains fewer proteins and calories because it needs added water, and could leave some people malnourished.

The wonderful Joni, bayfm front desk volunteer most Mondays, has lent belly:

The Kitchen Sink Cookbook: offbeat recipes from unusual ingredients, by Carolyn Wyman.

According to Carolyn, pureed baby food carrots are often used in carrot cakes, and some people use baby formula to make white sauce.  Yum!  And so convenient.  She gives a recipe for pasta with prawns and infant formula (first prize in the Fremont, Michigan National Baby Food Cookoff of 1994), but you ain’t getting it here!

I’ve got to show you one of my favourite web cooks though, the magnificent trailer park Nigella, Joelene Sugarbaker.

Sister Joelene has many more delicious recipes available.

EDIBLE QUOTES

We finished this double size belly with some Thai proverbs that give a little of the flavours of the country.

crying like a turtle being grilled = crying your eyes out

take coconuts to sell in the orchard = take coals to Newcastle

eat nam prik pao (chilli sauce) only from one cup =  be always faithful to your wife.

Make nam prik  and pour it away in the river = to be  extravagant or wasteful.

Get overripe before partly ripe = doing something before the appropriate time (usually means unmarried sex.)

MUSIC

“half a coconut shell with some strings” – was most of the lovely traditional Thai music we played in the first hour, according to Thome Evans
for more, go along to the Songkran Festival at the Bodhi Tree

Gotan Project, Triptico, from Gotan Project

Muddy Waters, Baby please don’t go

Nina Simone, My baby just cares for me

Frederic Chopin, Trois nouvelles etudes, Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano

Diesel, My baby likes to boogaloo, from Project blues Saturday suffering fools