Today on belly we met Lani Kennedy, one of our wonderful locals who has cooked in some very interesting places since, as she says ‘lying her way into the food industry’, from some wonderful Sydney inner city restaurants & the eastern Suburbs party set, to the green hills behind Mullumbimby, even on the sets of some of the biggest movies ever shot in Australia, like Moulin Rouge and Star Wars.  She is probably the only woman in Australia who can do the can can while whipping up a mayonnaise with a light sabre.   And she saw Keanu Reeves in the closet with her own eyes (he was hiding from his fitness trainer at the time, as he ate a pancake that was definitely not allowed on his diet.  I’m sure quite a few listeners of both sexes would have felt a little hot and bothered as Lani told her story of Keanu on his knees, begging for pancakes).

Although she remembers fondly the variety and sky’s the limit catering budgets on blockbuster movie sets, these days Lani is very happy putting on the occasional friendly event in Upper Main Arm with her friend Cass.

“I now cook for fun, here and there, and love taking food to parties, and eat well at home !! I mainly eat vego, but do eat seafood as well, and am big with legumes and food from all corners of the globe”.

Get in touch with her at sweetqueen27@gmail.com

The next Social at the Kohinoor Hall is Friday June 28.  All belly listeners are invited to get in touch with Lani and Cass if interested in going along.

Lani says : “myself and a friend Cass, cook up food made with love and integrity, to the crowd. It is a relaxed night of locals or non-locals, catching up, and keeping the hall alive…most people think nights at Kohinoor are full of ferals, lentils and dogs on bits of string…., in fact it’s a mixed bunch of “ex-Aquarius” types who now have money, young 30 something families, single trendies, and some barefoot ferals who don’t have money for food, so we trade with them washing dishes for us”

I really enjoy making my own curry powders, and keeping them in a jar for a multitude of uses. Curries, soups, mix w/ yogurt for a fish marinade, or in couscous, or lentil salads.

This is a Moroccan mix called “Ras El Hanout”, which translates to “Head of the Shop”, meaning,“No 1 spice mix” !!

1 tbs coriander seeds- toasted

1 tbs cumin seeds- toasted

2 tbs cardamom pods

1 tsp nutmeg

3 star anise

1 tbs cinnamon ( or 2 sticks)

1 tbs dry ginger powder

1 tbs peppercorns

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp allspice

5 dried bay leaves

Grind all of the above (except bay leaves), in a mortar & pestle or spice grinder.Place the leaves in later, and use as needed.

***Place in a clean jar and use whenever the fancy takes you !!

*** good for a gift too, just add a fancy label

200ml milk

200ml pouring cream

1 vanilla bean, split & scraped

120gm caster sugar

3 eggs

200g ricotta

20ml Frangelico liqueur

½ cup of Nutella spread

3,one-day old croissants

50gm chocolate pieces

*Oven 180C fan-forced, 200C conventional

**Combine milk, cream & vanilla bean in saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 mins.

**Strain into a bowl, then whisk sugar and eggs until combined.

Add Frangelico and hot milk mixture and whisk again.

**Meanwhile slice croissants lengthways into slices, and spread lightly with Nuttella. Dip slices into egg custard. Alternate slices and ricotta slices in the base of a 40cm x 15cm baking dish. Scatter with choc pieces, and pour over remaining custard.

**Bake for 20-30 mins, or until golden and puffed. Serve with cream or ice-cream (yummo, I promise)

Jeni Caffin, Byron Bay Writers Festival director, visited belly to tell us what food events and food writers are turning up this year.  She also shared some of her memories of the wonderful food in Bali, where she ran the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.  Six months after leaving Bali, she  desperately misses the food.

“onde onde, proper tempeh, vegie nasi campur, jogja gudeg, bakwan jagung.”

And if you see her rushing around looking undernourished at the festival, go and find her a corn fritter.

“I am totally obsessed with corn at the moment. White corn I nibble straight

off the cob, raw, but my favourite treat at present is a corn fritter.”

We had a quick chat about Barbara Sweeney’s food writing workshop, on this Saturday.  This is now sold out, although Jeni kindly made an extra place available for a bayfm subscriber (congratulations Meredith), but do contact the Northern Rivers Writers Centre if you want to register your interest in a future workshop on this topic.

After years of chasing her, author Kerry Greenwood is coming to the festival, and will be on various panels all weekend.  Her most famous character is Phryne Fisher, where everything about Melbourne in the Twenties is faithfully recreated, including the food and luscious cocktails.  But as we mentioned on previous shows, she also has a series featuring a character who is a baker/sleuth in modern day Melbourne, Corinna Chapman.  I encourage you to check out both these series, they are light but very well written, and do cover a lot of social issues in a very digestible way, they are definitely not just froth.

Lucio Galletto, a chef, restaurateur, art lover and cookbook author, originally from the beautiful Italian region of Liguria (the Italian Riviera), owner of Sydney institution Lucio’s, will also be on a festival panel and at a food event.

This is an extract of information on the Byron Bay Writers Festival site, go there for more and to book.

Steve Bisley & Denise Scott in conversation with Jane Caro

Steve Bisley is an Australian actor, lauded for his work in Mad Max, Police Rescue, Water rats and Halifax fp. Denise Scott is a comedian, radio personality and actor.

Byron Beach Cafe Clarke’s Beach, Lawson Street, Byron Bay

12.00pm – 3.00pm (Friday 2 August) $95

Tipples & tapas Dave Graney in conversation with Lucky Oceans

Dave Graney is a rock musician and singer-songwriter  Lucky Oceans, legendary pedal steel guitarist and presenter of Radio National’s The Planet.

The Pass Cafe, Brooke Drive, Byron Bay

6pm – 8pm (Friday 2 August) $30.00

Literary dinner MJ Akbar and Charles Lewis in conversation with Christopher Warren

Two of the world’s most respected veteran journalists in conversation with the CEO of the Walkley Foundation for Excellence in Journalism. MJ Akbar joins us from India, where he has recently resigned from the post of Editorial Director of India Today. Charles Lewis is an investigative journalist based in Washington DC and founder of The Centre for Public Integrity.

Fishheads Restaurant, Jonson Street at Main Beach, Byron Bay

7pm – 10pm (Friday 2 August) $95

Literary lunch – Lucio and Sally Galletto in conversation with ABC broadcaster Simon Marnie

Lucio’s Italian Restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Paddington was established in 1983 and enjoys a remarkable reputation for exceptional Italian food and magnificent Australian art. “Food and art for me is like the air that I breathe,” says Lucio Galletto OAM. “The combination of great food, great service and great art on the walls is, in my view, one of the best dining experiences you can imagine.” Over a lunch created by The Byron at Byron’s Head Chef Gavin Hughes, inspired by Lucio’s sumptuous book The art of pasta.

The Restaurant, Byron at Byron Resort & Spa Broken Head Road, Byron Bay

12pm – 3pm (Sunday 4 August) $100

The Earth Policy Institute, a US environmental think tank, has reported that the world production of farmed fish has overtaken the production of beef for the first time in modern history.  This happened at the end of 2011, and the gap widened in 2012, with farmed fish at 66 million tons and beef at 63 million.  This year farmed fish may also overtake wild caught fish for the first time.  Beef and wild fish both boomed from 1950 to the 1980s, but their production has slowed down as we basically run out of fish in the seas and places to put cows.  The cost of feed has also been rising, and it takes a lot more feed to produce beef per kilo than other animals.  However, while some types of seafood farming are sustainable, carnivorous species like salmon and prawns are typically fed 2 kilos of wild caught fish for every kilo of weight.  The Earth Policy Institute recommends a greater focus on small scale inland aquaculture, with no external inputs or outputs, and as usual, that we should all eat less animal foods.  In the United States the amount of meat in peoples’ diets has been falling since 2004,  consumption of beef per person has dropped by more than 13 percent, chicken by 5 percent, fish  by just 2 percent.  Go to www.earth-policy.org for the full article.

Choice reports that Australia’s food and health ministers finally approved a star rating system for packaged foods.  Companies now have a year to voluntarily implement the system, otherwise it will be made mandatory.  The Australian Food and Grocery Council is still attempting to water down the new system, although it is already a compromise.  Reports originally recommended a traffic light system as being easier for consumers to understand.

We should now see in stores food  with at the front of the packaging  a rating from half to 5 stars, telling us how healthy the food is – the more stars the better.  And information on sodium i.e. salt content, saturated fat, sugars and kilojoules. The information will sit underneath the star rating and be presented either per 100g/mL of the product, or per pack where the product is designed to be consumed in one go.

Coles is in the news again as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission assesses claims that the bread it sells in supermarkets as “baked today, sold today”, was actually baked as far as Ireland, or in other places in Australia, frozen, delivered and reheated in store.  Those of us who don’t have the time or desire to cook for dinner parties or our families, can now claim confidently that every mouthful came from our own kitchen.  After all, even the dishes that don’t need heating probably spent a bit of time in your fridge.

What is amazing is that our food production system is so skewed that it is cheaper for a large company to import frozen bread from Ireland, than to make it on the spot.

And finally, local herdsharers and raw milk lovers, take heart from a recent court win in the US state of Wisconsin.  A farmer who set up the ‘Moo-shine club’ were prosecuted for the sale of raw milk.  They are members of a herdshare – collectives which share ownership of a herd of cows. Farmers sell shares in their livestock, and shareholders receive raw milk in exchange for a fee used to help maintain the cows.  Vernon Hershberger, who founded the club, was found not guilty of selling without a licence.  Fans paraded outside the courthouse with placards stating “my milk, my body, my choice.

Love and chocolate covered writers (or actors, if you prefer),

Sister T