![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Gatya-Kelly-Cherries-in-chinese-bowl.jpg\" "\\"Gatya")
<\/a>Cherries in a Chinese Bowl, by Gatya Kelly, part of the Eat\/Paint\/Love opening Friday 10.12.10 at Still At the Centre in Byron Bay. \u00a9 Gatya Kelly<\/p><\/div>\n
IN SEASON IN DECEMBER:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n FISH AND SEAFOOD<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n All you need to know is on 2 really good websites – the Sydney Fish Market<\/a> and the\u00a0 Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS)<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Sydney Fish Market has a season guide, what’s in peak season or good availability so cheaper,better fish that hasn’t travelled the world to get to you. The good news is that\u00a0 on the AMCS better choice list,\u00a0 there are lots of choices of fish and seafood in season: Lots of recipes on the fish markets site too.\u00a0 And you can even find out how to tell the gender of a squid.\u00a0 If you want to.<\/p>\n VEGETABLES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Asparagus, Hass avocadoes, beans, beetroot especially small young ‘uns, broccoli, capsicum (skip the green ones, they are just unripe red and yellow caps), celery, cucumbers fat and thin, eggplant, onions, peas, radishes, corn, tomatoes hit full flavour, and zucchini and their flowers if the rain doesn’t rot them all.\u00a0 Try pumpkin flowers if you have a vine.<\/p>\n FRUIT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n As we said in the bulletin, rain is really playing havoc this year, and not just locally for once.\u00a0 But look for stone fruit now : glorious cherries and apricots,\u00a0 berries (locally strawberries on their way out), blueberries in full swing, raspberries, rock, water and honeydew melons, bananas, mangoes, valencia oranges, passionfruit, pineapple, and starting a bit late, so maybe at the end of the month, lychees.<\/p>\n BELLY BULLETIN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Honu tells us the\u00a0 Liberation Larder Christmas is on, free and veg and delicious at the Byron Community Centre, 12.30 on December 25th.\u00a0 All welcome.<\/p>\n This Friday December 10 the Eat, Paint, Love art exhibition kicks off with plenty of real food and drink and music at Still at the Centre Art gallery on the Byron arts and industry estate.\u00a0 But look closely at what you put in your mouth, as they have gathered more than 60 artists and 90 artworks all on, or around, food.\u00a0 Table Manners\u00a0 a ceramic installation by various artists will also be on for 2 days only, the 10th and 11th. Veet, will launch “Veet’s Cuisine” her first cookbook with 100 Vegetarian Recipes and beautiful drawings.\u00a0 The exhibition runs until the end of January.\u00a0 For more info listen to Arts canvass on bayfm around 9.30 this Thursday.<\/p>\n Look out for a new local magazine, focused on Northern rivers cooks and food producers, a quarterly called Sample.\u00a0 It is edited by the Echo’s food writer Victoria Cosford, and produced by Remy Tancred of Lennox Heads, who was behind that handy guide to local restaurants, and record of many great girl nights out, Ate Phat Ducks.\u00a0 You can find some tastes online, including a scallop risotto and an interview with the very successful macadamia producers from Brookfarm, at www.samplennsw.com<\/p>\n And wonderful Mullumbimby cook and food writer Belinda Jeffery has a new book out, called “the country cookbook”.\u00a0 In Belinda’s own words, “This book… chronicles a year of my life in one of the most beautiful corners of Australia, the Far North Coast of NSW. It really is a celebration of the \u2018Rainbow Country\u2019 as it’s called, and of the simple pleasures and food that mean so much to me.”<\/p>\n If you are into learning to grow and cook with plants suited to our sub-tropical environment, check out the Starseed Nursery website or see them at a Farmers market.\u00a0 They sound like they are doing really interesting projects, and we plan to get them on belly soon.\u00a0 Lotus, mushrooms and papaya are all upcoming workshops, as well as the fabulously named coconut day.\u00a0 This weekend, 11 and 12 December, they are cooking in and with bamboo, exploring bamboo and fire, and making bamboo bio-char which is a soil conditioner. It’s a 2 day workshop with food and music.\u00a0 www.starseed.co<\/p>\n In national news, cereal company Kelloggs has been crowned Australia’s most misleading junk food advertiser for the fourth year running in this year’s Fame and Shame Awards.\u00a0 They are organised by advocacy group The Parents Jury, which fights against junk food advertising to children.\u00a0 Kellogs won both the pester award for their LCM snack bars, and the Smoke and Mirrors Award for claiming Nutri-Grain is good for aspiring athletes.<\/p>\n If your favourite Christmas food is fruit, be ready to pay more and accept slightly damaged fruit.\u00a0\u00a0 Australia’s wettest spring on record and a rainy start to summer threatens fruit and grain harvests all across the south-east.\u00a0 Hail and rain has wiped out 80 per cent of some cherry crops at Young in New South Wales. But we like to finish on a positive note, so if you are on social networking site facebook, you may soon be getting slices of virtual pizza.\u00a0 And if your facebook\u00a0 friends send you enough virtual pizza you will be able to redeem it for slices of real pizza.\u00a0 Well sort of…real major chain fast food pizza.\u00a0 And of course you can find the branches with the GPS on your mobile phone.<\/p>\n And if your food dreams are more of the fancy restaurant variety, you don’t need to go all the way to France to eat in a 3 Michelin star place.\u00a0 There are now as many 3 star restaurants in Japan as in France, 26.\u00a0 Japan also has more than twice as many restaurants as France, roughly 500 thousand to 200 thousand.\u00a0 So just pop off up the road to Japan and make a start.<\/p>\n
\nPeak in December -Sydney rock oysters, school prawns (lovely Yamba prawns locally), loligo squid peak but southern calamari good availability, blue swimmer crabs – lots in local fish shops
\nFish peak availability – atlantic salmon, tiger flathead, gold band snapper and big eye tuna, but unfortunately all problematic according to the AMCS – on their avoid list<\/p>\n
\nwild australian salmon, blue mussels and blue swimmer crabs, all farmed oysters, school and bay or greentail prawns in NSW, the squids, farmed scallops, whitings and trevally<\/p>\n
\nMango growers in Queensland and the Northern Territory are also badly affected.Trevor Dunmall from the Australian Mango Industry Association says the wet conditions are damaging what was already a light crop. He says there will be fewer mangos around this season, and those that make it into the supermarkets will be slightly damaged. “To pick mangos you really need dry conditions, the rain can damage the skin and leads to easier marking and blemishes … so the appearance may not be ideal,” he said.
\nThe National Farmers Federation says fruit and grain harvests across the south-east are under serious and continued threat.<\/p>\n<\/a> Lilith’s Cooking with the Stars<\/strong> for<\/p>\n