Tag Archives: love

The belly love boat sails the world on Valentine’s day

The belly love boat went on a lovely world cruise today, thanks to a whole bunch of delicious romantics who shared their ideas for food and love with Sister T (captain T for today) and Sister B, on a special valentine edition of belly.  We have talked a lot about romantic meals in the past, this time we wanted to hear your ideas.  Luckily Sister B has a new friend called David who teaches at the Byron Bay English language school.  His students come from all over the world, and many know just how to be romantic, on Valentine Day or at any other time.  So much so that we think the school may have to hire security guards now.  Thank you very much to David (who is not advertising he says, but did mention he is single although I did not ask), Kim Yong Kyu from Korea, Dimitri from France, Carlos from Spain,Nawaf from Saudi Arabia, Marta from Catalunia, Ilona from Switzerland, Luca from Brazil, Kyoko from Japan, and Ashley from Korea.  And a couple of others that I couldn’t play because of technical  difficulties (radio term for ‘not pushing the right buttons’ ).

I also managed to find a few local romantics in the Brunswick Heads monthly market, a lovely smallish one held on the shores of the Brunswick river, not far from the beach.  Some good veggies and fruit too, not easy at the moment.  A drummer even improvised a whole riff on love and  food.  But it was hard to find people who would admit to planning a romantic or seductive meal.  So sad!  Even if you boycott Valentine’s Day and all its rampant commercialism, it really doesn’t take much to surprise someone occasionally.  As one woman said: “stick a candle in it and it’s romantic”.  A takeaway pizza with a candle in it is better than nothing!  Or a delicious picnic, pre-packed from your local deli.

A few tips from around the world:

Candles candles candles, chocolate, seafood especially lobster, strawberries, more chocolate and other sweet things, bubbles, the best you can afford – yes you’ve heard it before, but most people love them, from Mullumbimby to Montevideo.

If you are in a cold place, a cheese fondue in front of the fire – voted most romantic by 2 out of 2 Swiss women interviewed

If you are in a warm place – the beach, the outdoors, or somewhere beautiful – setting the scene is important

If you happen to live in the desert and your father owns a lot of camels, a camel ride in the moonlight works well

Women love a man who cooks, and everyone who cooks all the time loves not cooking occasionally

If you don’t have a sexy foreign accent, pretend

Expensive ingredients like lobster work because your loved one can see you are making an effort, but then cook them very simply and lightly.  And btw lobster is relatively affordable in Australia this year
Most food is sexier eaten with the hands (ok maybe not soup), even spaghetti says Sharna

If you are in the Byron area and want to cover a naked  someone in something delicious, go locally grown : macadamia paste not melted chocolate

AND FROM ROMANTIC BAYFM MONDAY PRESENTERS

Anna, Pregnancy Birth and Beyond :

I’m a fine wine and chocolate girl……..followed up by my husband on a plate! Ha!………the intensity of passion calls for light eating………which means to me of mouth watering morsels of delicious salads, exquisite tasting delicacies like marinated prawns, seafood or fish……………….I’m such a romantic!

Cruizy :

umm seductive meal ….
I’d keep it simple …….
I’d start with champagne
BBQ banana prawns &  scallops on a bed of oshitashi
(steamed spinach, with a soy and lemon dressing, dash of wasabi on side)
Mains would be lobster with virgin olive oil, lemon juice and some home
dried tomatoes  and a mango and pinenut leafy salad.
Dessert would be  lashings of strawberries with a dark chocolate and ginger
dipping sauce and a delicious chilled sauterne

The bellysisters just love Cruisy’s idea of simple – go girl!

EASY VALENTINE : THE BELLYSISTERS RECOMMEND

Melt chocolate slowly and cover pieces of fruit in season (not many strawberries sorry – but bananas, lychees, pears, much more)
Serve as individual pieces or make kebabs
Add more or less cream as you melt the chocolate depending on whether you’d like it hard or soft, maybe alcohol

Marinate fruit in season in a little spirit, cook pears in wine

Or make a slit in a Cavendish (not lady finger) banana skin and add rhum, cook in a dry pan or oven until soft, eat warm

EDIBLE QUOTES

We had to go for the love poetry book today of course
From “A POMEGRANATE” By Diodoros Zonas, About 100 BC

These are the gifts for Priapus, the god of love – well …of sex really

“A pomegranate just splitting, a peach just furry,
a fig with wrinkled flesh and juicy bottom,
a purple cluster (thick-berried well of wine),
nuts just skinned from their green peelings…”

And the full text of a gorgeous Pablo Neruda poem :

DRUNK AS DRUNK

“Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made out of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it – our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal –
Over the sky’s hot rim,
The day’s last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime –
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well.  Then
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.”

And if you recite this poem by candlelight, you probably don’t even need food….until afterwards.

Love and chocolate paint,

Sister T

Copyright © Soultravelmultimedia

MUSIC

The Love Boat theme

Bebel Gilberto, Summer Samba (So Nice), remixed by Mario Caldato Jr, from Tanto tempo remixes

Serge Gainbourg, La recette de l’Amour Fou

Asilah Island, Halim Love, from Bar Vista:Arabic

The Cruel Sea, Let’s lay down Here and Make Love

Joaquim Rodrigo, Tonadilla, allegro ma non troppo, Turibio Santos and Claudio Scimone on Spanish guitar

Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Look of Love

Positive Black Soul, Wooyuma

16 August 2010 – e-books,love and polenta

A pretty crazy show on day one of our major subscriber drive aka radiothon.  Sister T was answering phones for the previous show, Andrew Davie’s luscious Lighthouse Lounge, chatting up subscribers, and she ain’t a morning girl (why do you think we’re sponsored by a coffee company?)  Sister B had been to the gim for the first time in a loooong time and looked like she had been run over by a cement mixer.  And our lovely guest, presenter Karin Kolbe from Bayfm’s ‘the spin cycle’, is learning to surf.

She had all the glory ot standing up and all the pain of a solid fall in a few short seconds, and turned up full of painkillers.  But also full of beans, great info on her and TOOT’s (Train on our Tracks) campaign to bring back train transport, which would also make our food more sustainable.  And on where e-publishing,  is going, as she is a publisher and ‘internetty person’.  We look forwards ot electronic cookbooks with a stack of extra features as soon as publishers and authors get more creative.  And she shared her favourite, tried and tested cake recipe, from a tattered exercise book – with alphabetical tabs though, obviously an organised woman.

POLENTA AND YOGHURT CAKE

Ingredients :

300 g. plain yoghurt

100 g. polenta

grated rind of 1 orange

125 g. softened,chopped unsalted butter

220 g. caster sugar

3 eggs

200 g. self raising flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

85 g. chopped raisins

80 g pine nuts [or try macadamias in our area – n.d.sr.T]

citrus syrup :

1 lemon and 1 orange (preferably organic)

200 g. caster sugar

30 mL Cointreau (more is more, says Karin)

and cream to serve!

KK says that this cake is magic because first off you put the yoghurt and polenta and grated rind together to chat for an hour in a bowl.

Heat oven to 180C.

Toast nuts well in a little olive oil in a pan on low heat, it makes them come alive, but careful not to let them burn.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Sift together the flour and bicarbonate and fold gently into the butter mixture. Toss the raisins in a tbs of flour. Add yoghurt/polenta mix to batter, fold in nuts and raisins.

Butter and flour a 2 litre/21 cm kugelhopf (holey) cake mould. Pour in cake batter and cook 30-45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

While the cake cooks, make the citrus syrup.

Make small threads of zest from the orange and lemon and juice them. Put all ingredients except Cointreau in a saucepan, bring to the boil, lower heat and reduce volume by half. Turn off heat and add Cointreau.

To assemble, turn cake onto a rack for 10 minutes, then slide onto a plate and and pour hot syrup on top. Serve with cream.

Don't you love those spattered old recipe collections? Instead of star ratings they have spatter & scribble ratings


WHAT’S ON

for farmer’s and weekend markets please go to our markets page, but here’s a couple of other local events:

Organic farm share meetings – remember the people from herdshare, who were in the news a while ago with their scheme to own a bit of a cow so you can have your own organic, maybe even raw, milk – now calling themselves farm share

info meetings

NORTHERN NSW

Murwillumbah – Mon Aug 16, 7pm to 8:30pm

South Golden Beach – Fri Aug 20, 1pm to 2:30pm

Broken Head – Fri Aug 20, 6pm to 7:30pm

more info on website – http://organicfarmshare.com

BARISTA COURSE
TUESDAY 17th OF AUGUST
4.00PM TO 7.00PM
$75 call the Byron Youth Service – 6685 7777

Thanks again to everyone who subscribed to Bayfm today – we are getting together a few tasty bits and pieces for a post radiothon draw for belly supporters, and anyone listening on the first show after radiothon.  Also while you call in, tell the volunteer answering the phone if you’d like to go on the belly listeners page that we are assembling, leave an email address and the sisters will get in touch.

To go in the big prize draw you need to call (02) 6680 7999 by the morning of 29 August 2010.

Details on bayfm site.


LOVE FOOD

whole and split nutmeg

In honour of the ‘love your radio’ fortnight we are talking love foods for 2 weeks – keeping it seasonal for the Australian winter, unlike the summery Valentine Day recipes – and we wanted to change a bit from the constant oysters, strawberries and chocolate that our lovers serve us up.  Did you know you can make sexy pumpkin soup?   Just add freshly grated nutmeg at the beginning of cooking.  Nutmeg was considered an aphrodisiac by the Arabs and the Chinese.  Apparently you can also rub nutmeg oil on the genitals to ‘excite sexual passion’, but you might just give yourself a nasty rash.  I put a few drops of mace (the covering of the nutmeg ) essential oil in the bath a few years ago and had to get out very quickly.