Category Archives: RADIO SHOW POSTS

PLAYING WITH FIRE – Interview with Gus and Rebecca – growers, suppliers and manufacturers of Native Australian Foods – Surprising what’s right under our noses…

PLAYING WITH FIRE in the studio this morning… better warn the fire brigade.

HOT STUFF !!

We were lucky enough to be graced by the presence of Gus Donaghy and Rebecca Barnes on belly today. Too bad if you missed the chat but don’t despair, i’ll fill you in…

Gus and Rebecca are growers, suppliers and manufacturers of award winning Australian native foods and operate under the codename – PLAYING WITH FIRE.

Playing in the bush is where it all began actually, as they stumbled across some delicious wild berries on some land they were exploring. It made sense that with the right amount of love and direction, those wild, unruly delicious berries and many other native fruits, nuts, seeds and foods could be a source of seasonal pleasure that provide us with all the purest  nutrients nature intended.

ssssshhhhh just listen .....

Foods – from the lush tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, coastal sand dunes, cool mountains and arid desert – are growing in their natural environment yet we are blinded by flourescent lights and plastic coverings that protect our chemical laden food and we somehow fail to notice that we have forgotten what real food actually is…

I know where i'd rather be...

LOCAL !!! ORGANIC !!! WHOLEFOODS !!! NATIVE !!! SEASONAL !!! …

… this is the food we should be eating ! Spray free, loved and nutured… any or all of the above. Our bodies will crave what grows around us if you take the time to stop and listen. Maybe you can stop and listen to what Rebecca has to say about what it is they do at one of the markets. I found her at the Bangalow weekend market which is the 4th Sunday of the month.

In the meantime though i can fill you in on a thing or two…

All of their products – which range from Rainforest Fruit Jellies to Tea Infusions to Indigenous Spices and Flavourings to Gourmet Treats, oh and don’t forget the rainforest produce such as Davidsons Plums and Bunya Bunya Nuts – are as nature created them. Free of genetically modified ingredients, artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and highly nutritious. We are so blessed in this area with the quality and integrity of our food producers.

One of my favorite things about these guys is that they are so big on the educational side of things. Knowledge brings awareness, brings change, brings inspiration to people so that they may open their eyes and notice more, like what is around us on the very land we stand on. Get in sync with it. If you want to learn more, t hey offer a Plantation Consultation Service if you are a property owner wishing to investigate further into what might be growing or what you may choose to plant on your land in the future.

They’ve been PLAYING WITH FIRE in schools too by offering an Educational School Presentation where children from primary to high school are given a constructed memorable introduction to experience our local native food plants.

… and if all of that wasn’t enough they also offer Plantation Tours which is a 40 minute wander through mature plantation trees, learning while exploring different smells and tasting seasonal produce mmmm… did someone say tasting ??

These guys have such a great website. Find out about the significance of the name  PLAYING WITH FIRE and how it relates to the stories of the Aboriginal people. Let your mouth water as you see what’s on offer from the land around us…  go in and warm your self up !

Davidsons Plum

www.playingwithfire.com.au

Phone: +61 2 66887 9254

Email: enquiries@playingwithfire. com.au

Come on baby light my fire !!

Flaming love,

Sister Rasela

Belly street food special

ON AIR ON BYRON BAY’S BAYFM 99.9 ON MARCH 21, 2011

On belly today we hit the streets to check out fast and fabulous street food from around the world.  I was lucky enough to be in the great city of San Francisco recently, & recorded a talk about the street food revolution that has hit San Fran & many US cities recently.

But street food is on the rise around the world, as it gets faster and more urbanised, and is also seen as a way to preserve local food traditions.

According to  www.streetfood.org:

“From Akume in Togo to Pho in Vietnam, street food constitutes up to 40% of the daily diet of urban consumers in the developing world.

Yet, the rich cultural importance of street food is fragile.  Globalisation and urban development threaten these age-old traditions and, despite street food’s vital importance to local communities, there are serious health issues to contend with.

Consumers International (CI) is working to preserve street food life, so that local consumers, street food sellers and inquisitive travellers can enjoy these great dishes safely.

CI is campaigning for safe access to street food.

CI aims to:

Achieve recognition that street vending is a legitimate activity.

Persuade local authorities to improve access to sanitation and waste disposal for vendors.

Persuade local authorities to provide basic, accessible and affordable hygiene courses for vendors.”

So check out the website to find out more about their campaigns, and street food around the world.  They are looking for more content, and encourage schools and community groups to use their information.

And they have recipes!  (well only 3 so far).  I chose this one from Benin in West Africa because it is the first cooked one ingredient recipe I’ve ever seen, and it is vegan yet can’t possibly be good for you – but it sounds pretty delicious.

 

KLUI-KLUI : DEEP FRIED PEANUT BUTTER STICKS

Blend roasted unsalted peanuts until you get peanut butter.

Let it sit at room temperature for a day or until the solids settle to the bottom and the oil rises to the top.

Drain off the oil to use for frying or cooking.

Take the peanut solids and roll into stick shapes and fry in oil.

 

Yum!!!  Probably enough to give you a peanut allergy in a single hit, but it sounds dlish.

 

 

Tamara Palmer,Olivia Ongpin,Roger Feely and Brian Kimbell at Noise Pop in San Francisco - on belly candid and crappy cam, good camera died

 

CREATIVE STREET FOOD IN SAN FRANCISCO

Is going through a huge boom.  In the last 2 years all sorts of interesting entrepreneurs, cooks, chefs and food lovers have set up anything from a wok on wheels to massive specialised trucks – the food truck builders are going through a boom thanks to specially adapted gourmet fast food trucks costing anything up to US$250,000.

“We’re seeing demand for customization based on specific menus or food concepts, which may mean installing a pizza oven or a baking oven for cupcakes,” said Richard Gomez, customer sales engineer and plant controller at AA Cater Truck, the largest food truck manufacturer in the country. “There’s also a lot more emphasis on marketing and graphics. Trucks used to be just white, but now customers want to make their trucks look like celebrities.”

The people who were nice enough to let me record their talk this February come from a very different perspective.  They are involved with the underground, do it yourself, independent music and art scene.  Tamara writes about it on sfoodie and the feast.  Olivia has a gallery called Fabric8, where she shelters not-quite-fully-legal food vendors, at the same time as providing her punters with food that is vastly superior to the usual gallery opening nibbles.  Roger has a cart business called Soul Cocina,  is a trained chef, and also holds regular parties called Inside Out.  Brian is a curry vendor, his magic curry kart has even been all the way to the desert for Burning Man.

a man, a bike, woks and much mobile curry

To see a few of the characters involved with the street food scene in the US, check out www.roaminghunger.com

or this episode of a really entertaining web food series by 2 phat boys, that also includes things like the farmers market rapper

 

 

 

And what did I eat from all this feast of interesting stuff? Not much unfortunately, it was a quick visit, but I did have the best coffee I’ve ever had in the States from Curbside Coffee, and a deep fried chicken sandwich from this lot, parked outside the Noise Pop culture club – it was the only meal I needed all day really, lucky SF is a great walking city, but very tasty.

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure if this topic would be of interest locally, then a few days after I got back Sue Bennett in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote a story called ‘Sydney’s ready for street food’.  Both the story and the more than 80 comments talked about how much we need more street food, how great it would be to have outdoor good food vendors or markets.  And the barriers to it like regulations, hygiene concerns, traffic, complaints from restaurants and residents.

I’ve just talked to a friend who heard the show.  She’d love to see an evening outdoor market of stalls, a venue for all the creative locals with tasty ideas, we certainly have plenty.  San Francisco is a  city and we are a collection of villages, but in many ways we are similar – lots of artists, musicians, people from all sorts of backgrounds used to thinking outside the square, lots of wild and woolly diy, lots of good cooks too.  But I think one link that really makes it work in SF and could help here is the use of new(ish) technology, the twitter and yelp and facebook that helps the public find and recommend (or not)their favourite food vendors.  I was looking for food and found a whole music/art/underground festival with a few mouse clicks, they go together well.

a taste of the SF street food scene on belly Believe it or not, finally some belly audio on the belly site!  Well I’m excited… Learning all the time

and if you’ve only got a minute, listen to the cookie story sf_streetfood_cookie_story

get a string and start baking now – only problem is, we don’t have any tall buildings.

if you look for food carts or trucks, you may also get live, written to order poems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STREETSAFE SNACKING

A bit of  advice from various government and travel websites on tasting street food without ending up confined to the smallest room.

Where local tap water is not safe:
* only use bottled water to drink and brush your teeth and always check the seal
* do not put ice in drinks – freezing preserves germs, rather than kills them
* avoid uncooked food, including salads and fruit that you cannot peel

* in Africa they say to look for a neatly dressed, clean vendor
* wash your hands before you eat
* go with busy clean, organised places, look & smell
* eat food that is freshly and thoroughly cooked and served hot, not sitting around
* seafood dishes are notorious for causing intestinal problems. Smaller fish tend to be safer.

Obviously all this advice goes for restaurants too, I think sometimes more so as you can’t see the kitchen.  My only bad bug overseas was from  hotel room service.  According to the Australian government, you should also think about immunising against hepatitis A before going to countries where it is prevalent.

Love and chocolate klui-klui, sister T

MUSIC

Mo Horizons, Hit the road Jack/Pa ma estrada

Elvis, Hot Dog

Apricot Rail, Pouring milk out the window

Claude Hay, Get me some

Faux Pas, Chasing waterfalls

 

on air 14.3.11: Ocean Shores garden, dolce vita, white food and fab bread

Today on belly we welcomed the opening of  a new community garden, enjoyed a bit of opera, heard some of Susi Papi‘s many food stories, and shared our mutual love for fabulous no-knead bread.  And we heard Herbie Hancock tell how  listening to watermelon vendors as a kid resulted in his great hit “The watermelon Man”, that we play whenever we talk fresh fruit and veg.

Thank you very much to Susanne from the Byron Bay Community markets for sharing this clip.  The bellysisters will not rest until we convince the farmers marketeers to break into passionate song.  Great idea for getting people to go to the markets!

 

There is another video of this event here – wobblier, but you see how very beautiful the Valencia market is.

 

THE LAUNCH OF SHARA GARDENS

David Hall was on the show to talk about the brand new Ocean Shores community garden, to be called Shara Gardens.  It will be officially be launched on April 2, when all the paperwork is signed and ‘i’s duly dotted.  Speaking of which, they were lucky to have the support of the Mullumbimby Community garden, which made even the regulatory requirements a bit easier.

The garden is planned as an educational space (partly because they haven’t got enough land for everyone to have a plot on site), fully organic shared garden, and meeting place.

The launch will be Saturday April 2, from 1 to 3 pm, at the Ocean Shores Public School, at the very end of Shara Boulevard.  The Major will be there to entertain the adults, there will be stuff on for the kids too, everyone welcome including people from other areas interested in sharing information.  Check the local press for more details.

Whatever your skills or interests, you are needed: green thumbs, tradies, school kids, retired professionals to help in areas like grants and book keeping, and anyone who’d like to learn.  Call David on 6680 4728 for more details.

 

SUSI’S FOOD STORIES

Well just a few spoonfuls of what has obviously been a fascinating life.  I have known Susi since 1977, but by that time she had probably settled down a bit, and was importing her handsome Roman husband Luciano and 2 kids to the family farm in Camden NSW.  But before that she had quite a few adventures.  So often I discover great stuff about old (and new) friends by dragging them into the studio and turning on the mike.

Susi shared stories of being a kid in Australia after WW2,  when food shortages were still common.  Growing up with a dairying family she wasn’t hungry, but the diet wasn’t very varied.  Then her mother remarried and the family she was off  to Long Island, in the USA, where there was abundance, especially among the very wealthy Long Islanders, but the food was still very far from exciting “All the meals were white”.  But Susi still remembers fondly the revelation of her first artichoke.

Back to Australia and uni in the early 60s, and a fair bit of socialising in pubs with the infamous Sydney Push.  When everyone was thrown out at 6pm after the ‘6 o’clock swill’, food was the next best option.  Finally some colour and flavour, whether the choice was ‘the good Greek’ or ‘the bad Greek’.  And food that was ‘intentionally slow cooked’, as  opposed to cooked to death.

Then Dolce Vita Rome in 1963, the years depicted in the famous Fellini film, when the wild and beautiful people gravitated to Rome.  We only really managed to touch on that, and on the beautiful flavours of Roman food.  We detoured to Susi’s wonderful tomatoes for a few growing tips, and managed to squeeze in a mention of the one recipe she always tells friends to try, and my addiction ever since a belly guest, Nirava, put me on to it : the New York Times no knead bread.

Reasons this bread rules:

. It is very easy to make – takes longer to explain than to prepare

. It is slow risen so it is healthier, more digestible, very little yeast used, kind of a semi-sourdough

. No knead means no work

. You get crust, flavour and big air pockets

. It also works full of nuts and dried fruit, or seeds, or other flours

Original New York Times recipe.

 

Susi Papi with a beautiful double size loaf of no knead bread - about 3 days supply for Sister T

 

THE BELLY HOUSE NO-KNEAD BREAD

Having found and tried and adapted this recipe, I now leave it to my partner who EVERY TIME turns out a better bread than I can.  I think the secret is being very absent minded and forgetting it at every step, especially while it is cooking.  It probably helps that we have a really good, solid cast iron pot that holds the heat, and a standard electric oven that can’t get too hot.  Also making it twice a week (because I cry when there is none left), means much practice and no need to worry about quantities any more.  But even the first time, when I miscounted the cups of water and ended up with a ridiculous liquid mess,  still cooked to a fine tasting (though flat and funny looking) crusty loaf.  Yes, crusty bread in Byron Bay is possible!

3 cups bread flour; more for work surface [1]
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
cornmeal or wheat bran or more white flour

note : we now double the quantities because it keeps so well and I eat so much, to save work and electricity.  But try this size until you have mastered the only tricky bit, getting it into a heated pot without getting  burned.

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, [=1 and 1/2 cups, then keep another spoonful or 2 ready, see if it needs the extra water to come together – usually yes]
And stir until just blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with a plate. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, but preferably up to
18 [even 24], at room temperature. When surface is dotted with bubbles, dough is ready.

Lightly flour work surface. Place dough on work surface and sprinkle with more flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice.  Cover with bowl and let rest about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle just enough flour over work surface and your fingers to keep dough from sticking; quickly and gently shape dough into a ball.

Generously flour the bowl with plain flour, cornmeal/polenta flour, or wheat bran; place dough seam side down in bowl and dust with more flour. Cover with a  towel and let rise  until it has more than doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.   The original recipe calls for rising bread in between floured tea-towels, but we now have got tired of cleaning bread dough from tea towels and find this works just as well.

After about 1 1/2 hours, preheat oven to 220-230°C.  Place a large heavy covered pot, such as cast iron or Pyrex, in oven as it heats (for 20 to 30 minutes).  When dough has fully risen, carefully remove pot from oven.  Sprinkle some flour on the bottom of the pot.  Gently put dough into VERY HOT pot. Shake pot once or twice if dough looks unevenly distributed;  it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. [40 in our oven]

Uncover, and continue baking until browned, about 30 minutes. [tap to see if it feels crusty and hollow] Cool on a wire rack. In our climate it’s better to get it very crusty at this stage, anything else will lose the crust in a few hours.  If baked long enough, this is the only bread we have found here that will stay crusty – and not mouldy (!) for days.

[1] We use bakers’ white flour  (5 kg bags) or organic white as the base usually, sometimes 1 cup of wholemeal/kamut/semolina etc

Depending on the oven and the pot used, you may not need to leave the oven on so long before baking – but at least 10 minutes after it reaches 220-230 is good.

 

this bread is so crusty it should have dreadlocks

 

Susi has promised more stories in the near future – it seems she was in London when it was called Swinging, too – if I can find a vague food link, we’ll be there.

Love and chocolate sandwiches,

Sister T

 

MUSIC

Herbie Hancock’s story of “the Watermelon Man” is on the album “Watermelon Man, the ultimate Hancock!”

Sapore di Sale by Gino Paoli, 1963

On the sunny side of the street by Kermit Ruffins, from Putamayo presents kermit Ruffins

Cantiam, facciamo brindisi (Let’s sing, let’s toast) from the opera L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love), by Donizetti

Les Moissoneurs (the haymakers) by Couperin, performed by John Williams on guitar, from  “the baroque album”

on air March 7: Italian in season flavours, women’s voices & Danish Mardi Gras

It was a March hare’s mad tea party of a show today. Alison Drover was our guest fresh reporter and she was in an Italian mood, she prepared a whole lot of info on fruit and veg in season in March, especially zucchini eggplant and figs, then she couldn’t get to the studio so sister T has to pretend to be much blonder and nicer and better dressed (you can tell in the voice) and read out all Alison’s info and recipes. On the first belly in April though, she will be live on air in person. Also, straight from the belly lab, a wonderful new discovery, lychee choc tops, the belly bulletin featuring breast milk ice cream, stories from fabulous community radio food shows, lots of women’s voices to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s day, Danish mardi gras, and this week’s markets as usual.

ALISON’S GUEST FRESH REPORT : IN SEASON AROUND AUSTRALIA IN MARCH

This month March and I tend to think I am very Italian because it is the season for many fruits and vegetables, which characterize a lot of Italian cooking…  The fig, the zucchini flower, the eggplant, the zucchini, pumpkins and basil.

It is about using the seasons in abundance having a lot of something like eggplant and adding something special to it like an artisan cheese or some prosciutto but taking time to prepare the vegetables well. The Italians are inherently sustainable in the kitchen and supplement vegetables, which are low carbon footprint with small amounts of meat or often than not any meat and also make flavorsome cheeses, curds and intense pestos.

Zucchini Flowers – are at the markets however they disappear. Harris Farm and other groceries stock them however it is worth talking to your grower and even asking to reserve some. They are fragile and therefore you need to consider this with regards to price. They price can vary from anything to $4.00 a punnet upwards. The best incentive to grow food is to taste it.  The recipe that I have provided is for zucchini flowers and is a little “special” however worthwhile and then another that can be whipped up easily.

Corn …is ready and its arrival was celebrated in Corndale at the Chicken and Corn night in a few weeks ago at the Community Hall.

March is the month of figs. This is a time to seek them out and dedicate meals to them. I love figs grilled with cheese, salad, balsamic and roasted macadamias however they are good in so many ways especially on top of cakes.  Finding the Fig – figs are not going to be everywhere like the custard apple or the lime however this makes them more treasured. Look for them at local stores ie Bexhill Store has some great ones bought in by locals or the markets.  They have only a very short window at their peak so check out the local market now to see if you can get them. Figs grow quite well on the North Coast, despite coming from a more Mediterranean climate. The delicious plump fruits are highly perishable and can only be stored in the fridge for a few days. You can poach, grill and bake figs and add them to salads.

Custard Apples – love to grow in this region and are plentiful and often found on the side of the road at stalls as well as at the markets. More and more recipes for using them http://www.custardapple.com.au Peter Gilmore from the Quay restaurant in Sydney made them famous with the Custard Apple ice cream which is great.

Eggplants are glossy purple and in abundance. Many people overlook this vegetable however it is such diversity. The recipe I have included is for an eggplant stack with roasted tomato sauce, feta and basil. Whole eggplants can stored for two weeks in the fridge but once cut, they quickly discolour. Eggplant can be sliced and fried for use in lasagna but this method soaks up a lot of oil. Whole eggplants can be sliced lengthways and roasted for half an hour or so in a moderate oven until they collapse. The skin can be easily peeled off and the flesh pureed with tahini, lemon juice, a hint of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of cumin and a little olive oil and salt to make a brilliant dip – Baba Ganoush.  Of course you can mix eggplant with other ‘in season’ vegies such as tomatoes and zucchini to make a  ratatouille, which is basically a mixed, or roasted vegetables and onion in a tomato sauce. I take out all the tomatoes that I harvested in December from the freezer and mix them with the zucchini and eggplant.

Zucchini are robust and will keep in the fridge for a while and can be grated to make fritters with, chargrilled and layered like the eggplant, diced and fried with pasta or can be oven roasted with oil and garlic and rosemary make a great salad for a bbq.

March is the month for harvesting and eating beans, beetroot and Bok Choy. Beans of all sizes and shapes including green (or French), butter beans (yellow), scarlet (actually purple) and runner beans are in season now. One idea is steamed with basil, chopped boiled egg, macadamia oil and some red onion.

Baby beetroot should also be ready now and available at your local market. If you grow your own, you have the added bonus of using the tops – the smaller leaves in salads or the larger leaves in cooking, as you would use spinach. The roots are good sources of vitamins B1; B2 and the leaves are high in Vitamin C.

March is the month for:

• Making lime cordial so that you can top up your vitamin C in winter when limes are going to be very expensive

• Celebrating the fig – bake a cake, roast them poach them grill them

• Eating eggplant every which way and how

• Enjoying berries blueberries and strawberries before they disappear.

• Eating plums the last of the stoned fruit although in this area look for the sugar plums as they grow better here

Fruits in season this month:

• Apples – galas and red delicious have been in the shops for a few weeks, while Jonathons are coming off the trees at the moment

• Avocadoes – Hass are finishing up, but Shephards are coming into season

• Bananas

• Berries – this is the end of the season, but blueberries and blackberries are still very good

• Figs

• Fuji fruit

• Guava

• Mangoes – Kensington Prides have finished but the end of season Palmer mangoes are beautiful

• Pears – William, Sensation and Bosc

• Pineapples – Bethongas are still great

• Plums are gorgeous at the moment – particularly radiance and I’ve seen the first of the tiny sugar plums

• Pomegranates – mostly still fruit from the US, but the local supply will start later in March

• Quinces

• Rhubarb

Vegetables in season this month:

• Asian greens

• Beans

• Broccoli

• Brussels sprouts – the season is just starting

• Capsicums are good and cheap

• Cucumbers

• Chestnuts should be coming in later in the month

• Chillies

• Eggplant – the long thin Italian eggplants are particularly good

• Lettuce – although they’ve been small recently

• Mushrooms

• Okra

• Potatoes – Dutch cream and Sebagoes are the best

• Snow peas

• Sugar snap peas

• Sweetcorn

• Sweet potato

. Zucchini – excellent small zucchini available at the moment

ZUCCHINI FLOWERS STUFFED WITH FETA AND WHITE WINE BATTER – by Alison

Tips – If you open a bottle of wine mid week and don’t finish it take a freeze bag and freeze it and write across it “White White” . This is a great way of ensuring you have wine for cooking when you need it without opening a bottle especially

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil, to deep fry

140g feta  (try to go to the Farmers Market and get a local feta as it has so much flavor and you are supporting farmers who we rely on for the skills of traditional cheesemaking)

¼ cup parmesan, grated

2 Tbs thickened cream

6 zucchini flowers

1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup white wine

½ cup corn flour

Method:

Fill a saucepan half full with oil and place over a medium heat until hot enough to deep fry.

Combine the feta, parmesan and cream in a small bowl, season with salt and pepper. Spoon into a piping bag, pipe the mixture into the zucchini flowers and twist the flowers closed.

Place the flour, and white wine in a bowl, add a cup of water and using a whisk, whisk to make a batter.

Coat the zucchini flowers in corn flour, then carefully place in the hot oil. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden and crispy. Drain onto a plate lined with kitchen paper.   Sprinkle with salt to serve.

ALISON’S RAT (ATUILLE)

If you have some left over bread make it into breadcrumbs lay them on a tray with some olive oil on low heat to crunch them up and you can use this as a topping.  I also add some finely chopped rosemary and thyme from the garden which I have hung to dry.

5 red capsicum

70 ml olive oil

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced –(please use local garlic)

1 onion, finely chopped

4 cups peeled and diced tomatoes -passata

800 gm eggplant (about 2), cut widthways into 5mm-thick slices

400 gm green zucchini, cut widthways into 5mm-thick slices

6 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced horizontally

140 gm (2 cups) fresh coarse breadcrumbs or leftover bread finely chopped

100 gm finely grated cheddar or your choice hard cheese

2 tsp thyme leaves

Preheat oven to 180C. Place capsicum in a roasting pan, drizzle with 2 tsp olive oil and roast until skin is blistered (10-15 minutes). Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and cool.  When cool, peel and remove seeds (discarding peel and seeds), thinly slice lengthways and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and sauté until soft (5-7 minutes). Add tomatoes, season to taste and simmer, stirring occasionally to combine (4-5 minutes), then pour evenly into the base of a 3 litre-capacity deep baking dish.

Layer eggplant, overlapping slightly, over prepared base. Season to taste and repeat with zucchini and roast capsicum. Scatter anchovies over and finish with a layer of Roma tomatoes.

Combine breadcrumbs, cheddar or your choice of hard cheese and thyme in a bowl. Season to taste, then scatter over vegetables and drizzle with remaining olive oil. Pop in the oven and bake until top is golden about 55 minutes.

Alison Drover

 

FROM THE BELLY LAB

One other delicious thing in season this month is lychees, a bit of an odd up and down season this year, but there are quite a lot around at the moment.  Look out for small stone ones, a whole lot more flesh in even the small looking ones.   I had a lovely lychee martini in Brisbane recently, the best part was 3 frozen lychees on a stick as decoration/swizzle stick.  I took the idea back to the belly lab, and after much product testing, highly recommend to you…

LYCHEE CHOC TOPS

Peel and remove the stone from lychees, trying not to open them up too much.

Soak in a white spirit – white rum works well, vodka is drier and lets you taste the fruit more.  Skip for kids of course.

Freeze.  When frozen, coat in warm tempered chocolate and re-freeze.

Eat straight from freezer with great delight.

You could also experiment with filling the centre of the lychees with nuts, chocolate ganache, another fruit….too much is always good!

 

DANISH MARDI GRAS

Yes they are dancing in the streets in the biggest Carnival in the world today, in Rio, and all over Brazil and the Catholic world, celebrating life and love and rich food before we all get very serious and give up all animal products and sugar until Easter.

Most of us have heard of the Rio mardi gras, and the Sydney one, but have you heard about Danish mardi gras, or fastelavn?  It evolved out of the Catholic tradition, but as Denmark became mostly Protestant, it turned into “a time for children’s fun and family games” like whipping your parents.  It is celebrated the Sunday or Monday before Ash wednesday.

Some towns in Denmark hold  large Fastelavn  parades and festivities , including hitting a wooden effigy of a cat filled with sweets – which once used to contain an actual cat.

Of course there is a special food associated with Danish carnival, a sweet bun sometimes filled with cream.  It is made with potatoes, flour, egg, sugar and butter and deep fried.  Typical carnival food, sweet fried dough seems to be popular all over the world for mardi gras.

The other typical Danish tradition is a good flogging, now done mostly by children to wake up parents on the Sunday of fastelavn.  They use bunches of twigs or willow, decorated with sweets or feathers, egg-shells, storks and little figures of babies.  Apparently it started as a fertility ritual, when it was mainly the young women and the infertile who were flogged.  Then very pious parents would flog their kids to remind them of Christ’s suffering.  Now the kids get their revenge.  But the flogged ones always get a sweet bun in return.  If you are living at home with mum and dad, you could just go multicultural and be Danish for a day.

FASTELAVN BUNS – from this unadorned but great collection of Danish recipes, a lot from his mum, bless him.

* ½ pound potatoes

* 1 cup potato water

* 1 package dry yeast

* ½ cup water

* 2 cups flour — sifted

* 2 tablespoons soft butter

* 1 egg — beaten

* ¾ cup sugar

* ½ cup warm water

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 5 cups flour

Cook potatoes. Drain and reserve potato water. Mash potatoes. Mix mashed potatoes, potato water, yeast cake soaked in the 1/2 cup water, and the 2 cups flour. Let stand overnight.

In the morning add the butter, the egg and the sugar, and cream well. Add the lukewarm water, salt and the 5 cups flour. Beat well. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Punch down and roll ½ inch thick. Cut into rounds with a cookie cutter and drop each round into hot fat, browning on both sides. Remove and drain on paper towels.  Roll in sugar while still warm.

AND TO CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

I played a few minutes from a couple of my favourite community radio food shows.  Because on community radio you can be involved no matter your gender, colour, sexual orientation or fanciability.

This is a story from the American network NPR, by those other fabulous sisters, the Kitchen Sisters, about an indomitable woman who fed and helped the black civil rights campaigners, including ML King.

And this is from the Melbourne station 3CR, a piece from their long running food show ‘Food Fight’.  If you are chasing up info on all the benefits of coffee grounds for your garden, or you are thinking of starting up a coffee grounds recycling system where you are, the website is http://groundtoground.org/

 

AND FINALLY …. sometimes it’s hard to believe belly only goes for one hour:

THE BELLY BULLETIN

CARE Australia is  launching the Walk In Her Shoes challenge  in celebration of the 100th year of International Women’s Day.  Women and girls make up 60 per cent of the 1.4 billion people currently living in poverty. Millions walk over six kilometres a day in search of food, water and firewood. This leaves little time for anything else.  So if you want to Help break this cycle of poverty, Walk 10,000 steps per day for one week and get sponsored – the week is Monday 28 March to Sunday 3 April 2011.
You can raise money towards firewood, water, food, health care, safety or education to reduce the burden.  Go to www.careaustralia.org.au for details.

In other news, the 2 big supermarkets are fighting over milk, Mallams has closed down in Mullum, but I’d rather tell you about life-saving honey, soggy pizza and breast milk ice cream.

Honey made from an Australian native myrtle tree has been found to have the most powerful anti-bacterial properties of any honey in the world and could be used to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections that commonly occur in hospitals and nursing homes.   The myrtle is (leptospermum polygalifolium), which grows along the Australian eastern seaboard from the south coast of NSW to Cape York.  The honey is being tested by a Brisbane-based research group.  Meantime cover yourself in honey, it can’t hurt, just watch out for ants.

What does it take to break the  the record for the world’s longest pizza?   One-and-a-half tonnes of flour, 650 kilos of mozzarella, 1,500 litres of water, 30 or 40 kilos of salt and about 15 kilos of yeast, also one-and-a-half kilometres of chicken wire, and a special oven that can cook one-and-a-half metres of pizza per minute.
And no rain.  So maybe they never should have tried this in Melbourne, especially this year.
More than 40 chefs from Melbourne pizza restaurants were working since midnight last weekend on Lygon street, to make the 1.2-kilometre long pizza and were halfway through when rain-affected soggy dough brought the attempt to an end.
The pizza was going to be distributed to charities across Melbourne.
Judges from the Guinness World Records Association were there to decide if the pizza broke the previous record which is held by Poland.
Organisers say they might try again next year.

On my last belly show I told you about how popular baby food is with many adults.  Now you can go straight for the ultimate baby food.  A cafe in London has started selling ice cream made from women’s breast milk.  It is called Baby Gaga, and it’s made with milk expressed by 15 women who replied to an ad on an online mothers’ forum.  One of the milk donors, Victoria Hiley,  said that if adults realised how tasty breast milk was then more new mothers would feel happier about breastfeeding.  She expressed the milk at the cafe and it was pasteurised before lemon zest and vanilla pods were added as it was churned. Ms Hiley, is paid $23 for every 10 ounces of milk.
The man behind Baby Gaga icecream, Matt O’Connor, said he could not understand people being squeamish about the product. “If it’s good enough for our children, it’s good enough for the rest of us,” he said.  “Some people will hear about it and go yuck – but actually it’s pure organic, free-range and totally natural.”
Already a pretty good story, but now it’s much better because singer Lady Gaga has had her lawyer send a stern legal letter telling the ice-cream makers to : “cease and desist from in any other way associating with Lady Gaga any ice-cream you are offering,” .  The letter accuses The cafe of “taking unfair advantage of, and riding on the coat-tails of” Lady Gaga’s trademarks in a manner that is “deliberately provocative and, to many people, nausea-inducing”.
The ice-cream was a big hit. One serve costs $22.50 and it’s brought out by waitresses wearing flamboyant outfits, a bit of a  Lady Gaga trademark.  But breast milk icecream is now off the menu because Westminster City Council seized it for health and safety checks.  “We are taking the ice-cream away for samples,” a spokeswoman said.  “It’s not a ban. The owner has voluntarily agreed not to make any more or sell any more until we’ve got all the results.”  Breast milk could carry viral infections, including hepatitis, she explained.
The manufacturers have said they use the same screening procedures as blood donation centres or milk banks in London.

 

MUSIC

Still celebrating wonderful crazy community radio,  the tracks I played today were from a compilation done to support a Sydney community radio licence aspirant station that unfortunately never became permanent, Out Fm.

From “Inside Out”, Warner records 1999

authority over the fish –  by artificial

flowers in the sky – by boo boo and mace

miss del ray – by jo jo smith

 

love and chocolate cake, sister T

 

 

 

Omid Jafarri in the RAW & Do Terra Oils

“Good chefs, like artists, are visionaries. You have a vision of the taste, the look, the smell of your masterpiece, you hold it in your mind and make it materialise” Omid Jafarri

On the belly menu today – An interview with “Botanical Chef” Omid Jafarri who’s culinary travels around the globe inspired and refined his apprecialtion for our planet’s freshest, local and organic ingredients. From such a fine foundation, Omid honed his flair for creating subtle dishes that deliver full flavour, optimum health benefits and exquisite visual beauty … and so Botanical Cuisine was born.

This telephone interview is as much about the philosophy of clean, simple, nutritious food as it is about the life-giving creations you could learn to make yourself. This is raw food simplified, with minimal use of nuts and seeds and no dehydrating techniques apart from the use of the sun in “sunblushing”.

Omid believes that if we continue to mimick our past habits with what we consider “comfort foods” ie. replicating cooked recipes such as quiches, burgers, pizza and sweet treats, then we are not opening fully to the possibility or truly embracing the raw food philosophy.

Omid Jafarri

Currently based in Melbourne Victoria, Omid showcases his cuisine delivering the Botanical Cuisine Tour, The Botanical Way Course, via his website Tried.Tasted.Served, and on his blog Shiitake. Dearest to his heart however, is the charity he is the chief Fundraiser for – the TTS Bali Project, which is dedicated to educating and supporting the most disadvantaged children of Bali and to creating educational projects that incorporate organic and sustainable living. A percentage of all of Omid’s Botanical Cuisine Tour and Botanical Way course profits will be donated to the TTS Bali Project. Check him out and change your life.

Edible artwork

From edible artworks to ingestible aromatherapy oils … we’ve got it all going on here on belly !!

My live guest in the studio this week was Anna Parker who enlightens us on every occasion but this week she discussed the creation and benefits of the purest blend of organic aromatherapy oils that have ever been marketed. DoTerra means ‘Of the Earth’ and  the doTerra essential oils are CPTG (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade). This means that they are so pure you an ingest them.

!!! NB: TO ALL OF THOSE WITH AN OIL BURNER AT HOME !!! Before we go any further, DO NOT – i repeat – DO NOT even think about guzzling down your aromatherapy oils !!! These are very specific and special oils and Anna taught us about the differences, the health benefits and ways to use them.

One of the most interesting facts i learned today was that any aromatherapy oil that is bottled and sold as ‘Pure’ need only be 3% pure essential oil. There is no governing body to monitor and test the quality of oils. Much like the bottled water industry. Watch what you are spending your hard earned money on !!!

Anna is more than happy to enhance your life with these oils and would love to introduce you to their amazing qualities and benefits. There are massage and training sesions available along with bargain introductory offers. Email her at anna.sophiawisdom@gmail.com or check out the doTerra website for yourself – google doTerra.

From Anna

Hello Folk who have expressed interest in Doterra,

To make things easy I have attached the file again for this promotion of 3 oils and a DVD for $10 from Doterra which includes shipping from USA.  All you have to do is open the attachment , click view video which opens to a page where you don’t have to view the video if you don’t want to , but where you can fill out your details with  the  promotion code 42995 , make the payment with credit card and presto you will be sent 3 beautiful , very useful oils for $10: lemon, peppermint and lavender.

It’s too good to pass up and you can share this offer with as many friends as you like.

Here are some uses for the oils

Lavender; bruises, anxiety,cuts,depression,earache,insect repellant, insect bites, mental clarity, pain, scarring and skin problems, sttress, tension, sports injuries1

Lemon: concentration, depression,mental clarity, dispels odors, weight loss, detoxifier, , cleanser for home

Peppermint: concentration, digestion,fever,headaches,nausea, alertness,pain,clears sinuses,

Note: CPTG (CPTG certified pure therapeutic grade) Essential oils  can penetrate the cell membrane to fight bacteria and viruses where antibiotics can’t!

 Any questions give me  a ring on 0409224286.

Blessings, Anna

Download Australia...pdf (245.4 KB)
Australia…pdf
Download(245.4 KB)

That’s all folks !!

Sister Rasela

on air 21.2.11: Thome’s Thai secrets, finger limes and baby food

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

 

“Voices of Locals” and a paddle up the Root Canal.

Talofa! Sister Rasela here to paddle you through another tasty Belly show just in case you missed it the first time round, floatin over the airwaves, across this stunning Shire of ours.

If you’re here because something you heard on the show left a rumble in your Belly, even better!! It’s good to ignite the hunger pangs of wonder. Have you ever stopped to wonder… what am i really eating? Take control of your own life, your own body, your own thoughts, your own FOOD.

I’ve started to notice the otherwise unnoticeable since applying what i learned in Nutrition into my own life. The unmasking, the fog that clears, the clarity that  appears. The balance that grounds me now. I wouldn’t be able to preach what i didn’t truly and wholeheartedly believe if i had not made myself the study and begin to listen to my body, starting to eat more of what is grown on the land around me and living as close to ONE with NATURE as possible while keeping the balance in all of life’s enjoyments.

It’s been great to get to the point of so adamantly believing that the crap that most nutritionally defunct processed food is laiden with, is not only addictive but also hugely mind altering. This causes a rather large majority of people to act and react in ways they may not naturally.  What makes it ok to be the equivalent of ‘spiked’ by the local supermarket?

Stick to the FABULOUS FARMERS MARKETS around the Shire where your food is spiked with nothing but LOVE… what would you rather put into your magnificent body? Help it out, a little or alot. Whatever you can manage at the time. Just try to make it more GOOD that bad.

I reckon the Belly Sisters should bring out some new BELLY BEANS!!

 

I started the show today with the sounds of Mullum meandering in the rural regalness of the Friday farmers markets.  I strolled around asking the question – If you only had $10 to spend on food all day, what would you buy?

I asked this partly because i’m currently trying to stick to spending no more than $10 a day on food having listened to stories like  “SUPERMARKET SHELVES ARE BARE” following the devastating floods in Queensland recently, I asked myself the question… How much do you really NEED to survive? The answer is actually not that much if you’re not addicted to anything.

It really makes you STOP and think about what you’re going to eat for the day. Start by asking… Am i really hungry? To wait until you are actually hungry and to know that this is your one good meal of the day makes it taste soooo much better. Plus, your mouth waters for a reason… it is the FIRST STAGE of DIGESTION as your body starts preparing to accept food. A meal is truly satisfying if you choose the things your body naturally craves. To know what these things are means to listen to it, not overrule it.

I’d love to discover a way of posting recorded interviews such as this one which is just so refreshing to hear. Mullum market has such a beautiful feel to it as the majority of folk wander, half smiling in the knowledge that we are living a truly blessed life up here in Paradise Shire. Such an abundance of fresh foods served to you by the very hands that prepare, grow, produce and sell the goodies.  The idea wasn’t to find out exactly what foods people chose, but to make people stop and think about how much they are spending or over spending.

Thanks to everyone at the market that participated. It was lovely to meet new people and spread the LOVE across the Shire.

You also missed out on the next interview which was set at the opening of a Raw Food outlet in town almost a year ago now. We were spoiled raw rotten with all the equisite delights and i mingled with an interesting crowd and came across Sharon who i first approached earlier in the night because she had something lovely about. I had asked if she would be interested in telling me her story. She insisted that it was all about her son and that he was the more knowledgeable one and suggested i ask him. He is a beautiful boy glowing with health and gentle in nature but not too keen on speaking his inner feelings into a microphone. It’s confronting to alot of people and i understand that but later in the evening Sharon came back to me and happily informed me that she was now ready to have a chat. We found a bench outside and with passionate spanish guitar acoustics reverberating around us, Sharon shared her story about starting out on a Raw Food diet.

The most endearing thing about this interview is that after 50 odd years of living one way, Sharon is now experimenting in a world that is providing her with so much more energy and balance in her life. It’s great to hear her so excited about the changes she is making and bringing into others lives. Sharon was sure to point out that she is not 100% raw, at which point we agreed that changing one thing at a time and taking it slow is a far easier and more sustainable way of doing things.

I finished this show with some information on Root Canal Treatment and how it affects your health. I shall return at a later date with that information but if you get tired of waiting then check out the book (my bible) HEALING WITH WHOLE FOODS By Paul Pitchford. Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition.

The book that changes my life.

 

“This book has the feel of a life’s work: it’s packed with information essential for anyone seriously investigating the relationship between food and healing” – Yoga Journal

Healing with Whole Foods brings together authentic traditions of Asian medicine with current Western research on health and nutrition to create the most detailed sourcebook available on planning and preparing an optimal diet. I highly recommend it as did all of my nutrition tutors at college.

Well, that’s my lot for now. I’ll be bcak on Belly on Monday 28th Feb where i will have more tummy rumbling rambles for you to devour.

Be GOOD to your Belly’s and don’t panic – if it’s ORGANIC!!

Sista R

on air 24.1.11 : good food on a small boat and tasty ugly fruit

The bellysisters are happy members of the great sisterhood of substantial second helpings, and hopefully so are all our lovely listeners, people who love cooking eating and talking about good food.  On belly today, a story about food prices, and more food news at the end of the show.  But mostly I was talking with Brigitte Hendrix, a regular belly listener who loves to experiment with recipes, from the homey to molecular gastronomy, and who has lived and cooked and eaten from Mullumbimby to Umbria, and even on the high seas.

FOOD PRICES, or UGLY IS GOOD

It’s time to buy ugly food dear bellysisters!  Or discover local markets and independent shops.

We’ve all heard that the Queensland floods  will affect food prices.  At the height of the floods, when the Brisbane central market was closed because it was underwater, a friend of mine witnessed  ‘supermarket rage’ as some shoppers didn’t understand why prices had gone up and were abusing staff.
However, the Fairfax papers report that  “much of the produce from Queensland had already been picked and packed when the floods hit and the season there was drawing to its end. Fruit markets [are] more dependent on produce from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania at this time of year. ..The price rises will be due to wet weather down south rather than what is happening up north…Vegetables such as beans, broccoli, and celery might rise in price because of heavy rains in Victoria”
Some Queensland crops such as watermelons and tomatoes have been destroyed, leading to large price rises in produce from other parts of Australia,  but  ”It’s the long-term story from Queensland that’s the issue. The early autumn crops need to be put in the ground now.”  Queensland traditionally supplies most of our autumn and winter fruit and veg.  The floods have also removed topsoil in some areas, decreasing productivity.  So expect price rises right now and for a while to come.  In a front page update today, the smherald reports increases in watermelons,sweet potatoes,broccoli, zucchini,bananas, capsicum, tomatoes, mangoes and lettuces.  Forecast shortages include lettuces, potatoes,chillies, corn and cabbage.  So if you have a veggy patch, or room for a few pots, it may be a good year to grow a few of those things yourself.  Lettuces, chillies, sweet potatoes and tomatoes are all very easy to grow at home in our climate, even if you don’t have much space.   At times local produce is more expensive than food trucked in from other parts of Australia, and this year the bad weather has caused shortages and price rises here too.  But mostly market growers, and shops that stock a lot of local items, keep the prices of local produce pretty steady.   So it may be a good idea to support them year round.

If you do shop at supermarkets, buy ugly fruit and veg!  Coles has started stocking blemished fruit, and Woolworths is considering it too, but is afraid of customer reactions.  So tell them to bring it on!  The alternative to ugly Australian fruit and veg this year is perfect looking imported produce, which the big chains are considering in order to keep those overflowing bins full.

A DELICIOUS LISTENER – BRIGITTE HENDRIX

Brigitte now lives in Mullumbimby, but grew up in Victoria, the daughter of a Dutch mother and German pastry maker father, who used to let her help out at the factory on weekends and go delivering pastries with him to a network of traditional German and European restaurants.  She got bored with Melbourne as a young woman and went off to Asia and Europe.  She spent quite a lot of her travelling years eating and cooking, including a stint as the on board cook on a beautiful old wooden tugboat.  The owners wandered the shores of the Mediterranean, especially Corsica and the South of France, and she remembers fondly the smells of the boat and discovering many wonderful food markets.  She believes most people love having simple food cooked for them, where you can still taste the original ingredients.
At the same time, she loves playing with food a’ la Heston Blumenthal, fun and theatre and lots of kitchen gadgets.  We had a little rave about gorgeous local natives, the finger limes, which are a molecular gastronomy experiment by mother nature.  She has lots of creative ideas from her travels and would love to get together with others locally to set up a different kind of space or catering company.

Brigitte developed this recipe to share on belly, because, as we’ve been saying, there is a lot of fruit around that either doesn’t look great or goes off quickly.

NOT SO FRESH BUT SUPER TASTY FRUIT JELLY


Take any stone fruit, e.g.; cherries, peaches,  nectarines, lychees.  And/or other
fruits you might have such as  pineapple, apples, grapes, anything that
is wrinkly or not so tasty or just needs to be used  rather than thrown out.
More or less a kilo of fruit.

Roughly chunky chop everything (minus seeds) and place in  a heavy
pot.

Add one star anise ,cinnamon quill,anything else you like.
Add one cup juice {whatever you have} I like cherry.
Add half a cup brown sugar. Stir .
Bring to boil; spoon out half cup of juice and place in cup with  *2
sheets of gelatine till syrupy.
Then place back in pot and STIR .
I also like to add a dessert spoon of ghee this makes it glossy and
creamy. STIR till a lovely glossy rich thick consistency.
Pour into serving dish, allow to cool, place in fridge.
Serve when cold and firm.

*I’ve always had a problem with using gelatine and have now found
the one my mum uses (Rheingold schnell-losliche), so far it works
beautifully for me.

A FEW FAVOURITE THINGS

My favourite cookbook is Good Housekeeping (Step by step cookbook).
I got this book in 1993 and it has absolutely every recipe known in the
West. It’s so easy and everything works.  It has taught me the basic ground
rules and from that I’m able to experiment and elaborate.

My favourite food is kangaroo meat which is a beautiful lean healthy
clean meat; hazelnut ice-cream dreamy.  Healthy, top quality chocolate, nothing
more necessary; coffee yoghurt; great cleanser, and Italian cheese cake, decadent  and rare to find a good one  . My mouth’s watering.  And my favourite drink is Coopers vintage stout (no longer available).  Real milk (Dutch) and iced fresh mint mineral water with finger limes and Stevia.

Brigitte

THE BELLY BULLETIN

Fairfax papers have launched an investigation into rorts and fraud by the buyers for Coles and Woolworths supermarkets, which control 70% of the grocery market.
Bill Harvey, Woolworths’ national buyer for coffee, tea and sugar, was detained by police on Friday.  Food wholesalers pay so called ”promotional surcharges” of between 15 and 20 per cent to have their products stocked by Woolworths.
A big pot of money, which leads to temptations. It is alleged that Mr Harvey, who has a salary of about $150,000 a year, took a percentage of the promotional fees from coffee and tea suppliers who wanted to get their products on to Woolworths shelves.  In cash.  Possibly in little brown envelopes.
In similar cases, in October last year Woolworths dismissed three buyers from its fresh produce department after a tip-off that it was paying up to $20 per box too much for parsnips. Of all things.  And in 2006 Coles sacked an executive for a secret deal over lamb supplies.  The supermarkets and the sacked execs in these 2 cases deny allegations of criminal intent.  According to the blog www.insideretailing.com.au, Woolworths also had to bring criminal charges over 2 meat buyers a few years ago.
More tipoffs are welcome, to mhawthorne@theage.com.au

Another pest to watch out for is ‘Myrtle rust’.  According to the NSW department of Primary Industries Myrtle Rust  is a newly described fungus.  It affects a lot of locally grown plants and has recently been spotted in wholesale nurseries in Byron Bay and Alstonville according to the ABC, also from the NSW Central Coast to Queensland.  It affects, among others, a lot of lovely native food plants, like lemon myrtle, aniseed myrtle, native guava, rose apple and riberry, so the public is asked to inspect and report any infestation, as it may also spread into the bush.
Myrtle Rust is distinctive, as it produces masses of powdery bright yellow or orange-yellow spores on infected plant parts. It causes lesions on young actively growing leaves, shoots, flower buds and fruits. Leaves may become buckled or twisted or die.  Infection on highly susceptible plants may result in plant death.  More info, photos and how to deal with suspect plants, here.

Still on plants, if your chilli bushes, like mine, are either refusing to fruit, or the chillies are going from ripe to rotten in record time, spare a thought for the chilli addicts of Indonesia.  Chili prices have multiplied fivefold in Indonesia over the past year to around Rp 100,000 ($11) a kilogram, making it more expensive than beef.  Many people there cannot give up a chilli sambal and are cutting back on other food instead.  Chilli production has fallen because of excessive rains and the volcanic eruptions of Mount Merapi.  As a short-term solution to the chilli prices, Agriculture Minister Suswono said he was preparing a national campaign to encourage people to plant chilies. He said free seeds would be distributed to 100,000 households.  The government is also  moving to introduce new regulation making it easier to secure land for agriculture.  One comment to the story, from “Mamaku” complained of the large “amount of farm lands changing into real estates, malls or state highways.”  Sound familiar?

Some good news now.  The fishing season for Southern bluefin tuna in the great Australian Bight has just started.  Fishing crews are reporting massive increases in fish numbers, possibly as a result of quotas  imposed in the 1980s by the main fishing nations Australia, Japan and New Zealand.  Southern bluefin tuna is listed as a critically endangered species, and not recommended as a sustainable fish choice, but maybe there is hope that populations are recovering.  Fishermen out of Port Lincoln in South Australia report numbers not seen in 25 years, and a good range of sizes and ages.  So the fiftieth tuna festival in Port Lincoln should be a happy event.  It’s on right now until January 26.  The centerpiece is a tuna tossing competition, which now involves a fake fish so as not to waste tuna.  And for the kids, a prawn tossing comp.  The world record toss of 37.23 metres was set in 1998.

And finally,the Australian Bureau of Statistics says that we are drinking less beer.  At the start of the 1960s, beer made up more than 75% of all the  alcohol we consumed.  Now beer is at 44 per cent.  Wine consumption has tripled to 36 per cent and spirit has almost doubled to 20 per cent over that time.
Australia’s peak per capita alcohol consumption was in the mid-1970s.  We drank an average of 13 litres of pure alcohol  per person per year.  That dropped to under 10 litres in the mid-1990s, but has since risen to nearly 10.5 litres, or 2.3 standard drinks, per person per day.  But the ABS admits that it overestimates consumption, because alcohol used in cooking, and waste are also included.  Which is a relief.

The belly bulletin today was sourced from ABC online, Fairfax papers, the Jakarta Globe and belly informers in your community and online, and brought to you by sister T.


EDIBLE QUOTE

Baron Lamington: “Those bloody poofy woolly biscuits”- Baron Lamington was governor of Queensland in the late 1800s when government house cooks, to feed unexpected guests, improvised by rolling stale cake in icing & coconut.  He obviously did not appreciate his name being linked to them – you never know what you will be remembered by, but it could be worse than a sweet that brought so many smiles, and dollars to charities all over Oz.

MUSIC

Claude Hay, Get me some, from  “Get me some”

Kate Rowe, Coffee my Lover, from Nature’s Little Game

Jazzerati, Cafe le Bop, from Live at Pix records

Mo Horizons, Pa Ma Estrada

Kristi Stassinopolou, Waves, from Nu Europe

love, chocolate cake and ugly fruit,

sister T

on air 17.1.11 : kids in the belly kitchen

Total takeover of belly today by the juniors : Audrey (6), Luca (9), Zoe (10), Abbie (11) and Jordan (12).  All fabulous cooks, with talented mothers and teachers Adele Wessell from Southern Cross University and Melanie Le Sueur from Bangalow Public School.  Eight of us in the not so very huge bayfm studio!

They were all involved one way or another with the TV program Junior Masterchef last year.

Audrey and Luca ready for the great pasta challenge

ADELE WESSELL is a lecturer at Southern Cross University in Lismore.  She teaches history but is also a food scholar, and the mother of Audrey and Luca.  She helped organise some fellow food scholars under the loose umbrella of the Masterchef TV program at the national conference of the Australasian cultural Studies Association, held in Byron Bay last December.

Adele presented a paper on the children’s version of Masterchef, which aired last year for the first time and was very successful with both kids and adults.  One of the reasons she did a study on it was to allow her to spend more time with Audrey and Luca, who love to get into the kitchen.  Out of the 5 kids in the studio, Luca is the only one who admitted he’d like a career in food, maybe with his own cafe.  He is handy with a kitchen blowtorch (essential for creme brulee these days), and also loves making potato gratin.  Audrey at 6 years old has her own knife and loves to “plate up”, and according to Adele will even eat more veg if she gets to arrange them.  Plating up, both the expression and the activity, is definitely a new favourite of Australian kids.

We touched on a few of the issues that Adele identified in her study:

* anxieties over exposing the kids to competition (which our little sample said they enjoy).
* anxieties over healthy food and obesity, which were not a focus of the adult program but were often brought up as essential in teaching kids to cook.  The adult programme was simply focused on the sheer pleasure of cooking.
* current entertainment trends focused on activities that may have been regarded as work, and the way this brings young people back into  domestic activities, allowing play and necessary household work to happen at the same time, and family members to spend time together.
* judging from ingredient sales, people were actually learning and doing the recipes on the show (although I suspect there are a lot of jars and bottles languishing in pantries as a result of MC).
* the cooking was sometimes seen as to complex, and the series cookbook contained much simpler recipes
* although the adult cooking competitors cried ALL THE TIME, the kids were supposed to be not just talented cooks from the start, but willing to take criticism and not prone to tears

Then it was time for a quick musical chairs moment, and Jordan, Abbie and Zoe,  3 of the 12 local kids  invited to a masterclass on Junior MC, and their teacher MELANIE LE SUEUR, shared their experiences.
Bangalow Public School was invited to participate because of the years of cooking and veggie patch programs that the school has put on.  Belly regular Leah Roland, who runs the Bangalow Cooking School, and Michael Malloy, who runs everything else in Byron Bay and Bangalow, have put endless volunteer hours into Kids in the Kitchen and other programs.  Many of the students now regularly cook for their families and friends.
Melanie is the mother of 2 kids at the school, has taught there for 5 years, and helped co-ordinate cooking classes at the school last year.  She went to Sydney with the kids for the shooting and witnessed all the drama.  The show producers actually tried to change the format and cancel the trip after they had all bought tickets, but Leah managed to convince them that they really didn’t want 12 very disappointed kids on their doorstep.  I think a group of diminutive picketers, beating whisks against bowls, shouting : ” Whaddowewant?  To learn to cook!  Whendowewannt? Now!” would have been fun on the news though.
Jordan can cook lots of tricky dishes but is a fan of the granita ice dessert, you will find a whole post on granita on the belly site, because the bellysisters agree it is a wonderful thing.  Abbie loved the Clafoutis that they made,and the school now has its own version (below).  Zoe learned to peel and beautifully dice tomatoes on MC, but seems more excited about having  played football (soccer) with George, one of the presenters.  And everyone agrees the time one of the kids forgot about her lapel mike, and whispered “You can see George’s bum crack” was a highlight.

The episode took 9 hours of shooting, with breaks mandatory to rest and feed the kids every 30 minutes.  They had fun, and learned a lot, although both Adele and Melanie regret that no washing up is shown or taught on the show.  That’s the price a lot of parents with young cooks pay – a LOT of washing up!

Thank you to Melanie and Bangalow Public School for sharing the recipes below.
If your school or group is doing something interesting with junior cooks, the bellysisters would love you to come on the show, or we may be able to come to you, or record something for us to play.
Thank you to Audrey, Zoe, Abbie, Luca and Jordan, who shared their stories and were such media pros in the bayfm studio.

Sister T (feeling much better about the Australian baby boom now)

PEACH OR NECTARINE CLAFOUTIS

You can use any many different types of fruit, depends on the season.
Peach nectarines, plums, rasperries, blueberries, boysenberries and cherries all work well!
Clafoutis all year round.

INGREDIENTS
600gm of fruit
If using peaches and nectarines cut into wedges
A little butter for greasing the baking dish
For the batter
250 gm Self Raising flour
250 gm of sugar
500ml milk
6 eggs

UTENSILS
2 large ceramic baking trays or quiche flan, whisk, spatula, mixing bowl,

METHOD

Turn oven onto 180degrees Celsius.
If using peaches and nectarines destine and cut into thin wedges. If the fruit is a little hard you might like to poach them in water and sugar beforehand.
Grease your baking tray.
Mix the batter to a thick consistency with a whisk.
Arrange fruit in the baking tray and pour batter on top.
Bake in oven for 30- 40minutes until brown on top
Serve with ice-cream or yummy lemon myrtle yoghurt (lemon myrtle is a lemon scented eucalyptus native to the North coast of NSW)

To make lemon Myrtle yoghurt :

 Mix together 500g yoghurt, 1tsp ground lemon myrtle and add honey to taste.

FRUIT GALETTE

Ingredients
4 sheets Puff pastry
1kg fruit such as peaches, nectarines, pears or apples.
½ – ¾  soft cup brown sugar
Cinnamon (optional)
50ml milk and 1 egg (mix to make an egg wash)

UTENSILS
Flat baking tray, knife, chopping board, baking paper, bowls pastry brush.

METHOD
Check oven is on 180 degrees Celsius
De-stone peaches (or de-core apples pears etc) Thinly slice your fruit place in bowl and mix with sugar and cinnamon.
Cut puff pastry into long rectangles about 5-7 cm wide brush with milk and egg wash
Place fruit in a fan layered way  on top of pastry.
Bake in a preheated oven for 25-35 minutes until pastry has puffed up and is browned

SALSA VERDE


INGREDIENTS
2 cups herbs – basil, parsley, mint or coriander or a combinations
4 garlic cloves
½ cup capers
100-150mls olive oil
20mls red wine vinegar
6 anchovies fillets and 1 gherkin (optional)

UTENSILS
Salad bowl, blender/food processor, Mortar and pestle or garlic crusher, spatula

METHOD
Pick leaves off herbs and place into food processor.
Add chopped garlic and gherkins, anchovies and capers and vinegar.
Lightly blend until chopped coarsely then drizzle in olive oil until you reach a chunky paste like consistency.
Place in a bowl and drizzle oil on top or cover with cling film to stop from browning.
Use on your favourite pasta or grilled vegetable meat or fish.

The whole episode with the Bangalow students is available online, and is well worth watching.

And these are a couple of articles about the school

http://www.masterchef.com.au/9654.htm

http://travel.ninemsn.com.au/holidaytype/kidsfamily/8169203/cooking-classes-for-mini-master-chefs

http://www.heartbeat.net.au/?p=131_bangalow_masterchef

Adele Wessell has a number of articles on food online, do a search or just have a look here

MUSIC

Beady Belle – Goldilocks, from ‘Ladies in Nu-Jazz’

Dropwise Dubs, Yes Please, from Bass Bucket

Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man instrumental, from ‘Watermelon man the ultimate Hancock!’

TM Juke – Playground Games, from Nu jazz anthology

Stacey Kent and Jan Lundgren trio, Street of Dreams, from Nu Jazz anthology

Oka, Pandanus, from LMR 4ZZZ, The Dreaming 2010

on air January 10 – Toorak to Rome, Lilith to Elvis, with campfire cherries

The wonderful Lilith was  in the studio today for our last episode of ‘Cooking with the Stars’.  Today’s episode is for Capricorns and those who love them and everyone who would like to hear about some of Lilith’s own adventures – the stuff of legend.  And a whole lot of famous Capricorn chefs, even a recipe today.  In the second half of belly I played an interview recorded in December at the 2010 National conference of the Australasian Cultural Studies Association. Sounds serious and it was, even though I went to hear a couple of panels all about Masterchef. Lots of learned scholars discussing food issues in a thoroughly enjoyable way, including Liv Hamilton from Macquarie Uni in Sydney. She is looking at how politics and unease about migrants in Italy is reflected in battles over what kids should be eating in Italian schools.  The dark side of the Mediterranean diet!
And lots of Elvis, straight from the great Parkes Elvis Festival.  Or so  he told me, and you don’t argue with the King (aah-hu!).  Of course you don’t need a reason to play Elvis, but Liv was just back from a road trip that included all the sequins and karaoke of Parkes, so… Liv adds that she was camping with 4 foodies and “best dessert of the trip was marshmallow fondue with cherries, made in our little skillet on the gas burner. And of course we took our coffee pot, for fresh coffee every morning.”  I do that too, the Italian caffettiera works well on a barbie.
Although I was a bit rude about the cherry fondue on air (well we can’t ALL like marshmallows), I might see if I can get Liv to share the recipe for you marshmallow lovers.
Liv is from a part Italian background, but is vegetarian and gluten intolerant, which helped lead her to some places and people well away from tourist postcard versions of Italy.  During our interview, she discussed some aspects of her doctoral thesis, which “examines the ways in which immigrants and minorities in the city of Rome construct their identities in place, making claims to belong in a city in which they are often conceived as outsiders.”  We talked about the outrage in some sections of the community and the press when Rome tried to bring in ‘ethnic’ menus in schools, as a way of learning about the major immigrant groups in the city.  Now the government and the policy have changed, and Liv writes :

“Authorities encourage children to eat a ‘Mediterranean’ (Italian) diet through provisions in school canteens. 2010 is the first year that a national policy on school canteen food has been released (previously this had been managed at the local level).  This policy  requires  school canteens to use fresh, local products and recipes, and does not allow  individual schools to introduce ‘ethnic’ menus.

Children of immigrants are described (in this same document) as being at high risk of obesity due to attempts to maintain the family’s traditional diet at the same time as eating an Italian diet (thus causing ‘excess’), while their families’ low incomes lead to consumption of high-fat foods (something common to all children of low socio-economic background, but in this document specifically attributed to children of immigrants – with no statistical data provided on how many of these families earn low incomes).

Essentially, the assumption is that the Mediterranean diet is the healthier choice and
children should be encouraged to adopt it even at home, with the food provided at school seen as an educational tool and a way to promote ‘integration’.”

We also talked about how some Italian towns (eg Lucca in Tuscany) are trying to ban non-Italian restaurants from historic centres, so as not to detract from their Italian-ness.  And most importantly, if you happen to need a break from Italian food in Rome, Liv recommends “Il Guru delle Spezie” – the guru of spice Indian restaurant.

Sister T

LILITH IS COOKING WITH THE STARS : CAPRICORN

Today we belatedly wish happy birthday to all our hardworking, ambitious Capricorns, those Goats who can digest almost anything if they have to, but
are usually choosy about their food, preferring it simple, unfussy, elegant, classy and classic. Their tastes tend towards the best restaurants, traditional linen and silver, top quality ingredients impeccably prepared and served,  so of course many respected chefs are Capricorns – in Japan, which now has more Michelin stars than any nation, their two most famous TV chefs, Chen Kenichi and Rokusaburo Michiba are both Capricorns.
The traditional dishes Capricorns tend to favour are often rich: steak and kidney pie enriched with truffles and field mushrooms, or Chateubriand followed by tarte tatin, port and a fine fromage.

Like chef ALAIN CHAPEL, supposedly a pioneer of nouvelle cuisine, whose signature dishes included stuffed calves’ ears with fried parsley, truffle-stuffed chicken in a pork bladder cooked in a rich broth and gateau de foies blonds, a mousse of pureed chicken livers and beef marrow served in a lobster cream sauce ­ one Capricorn’s version of nouvelle cuisine.

Capricorn chef KEITH FLOYD‘s wine-fuelled TV presentations endeared him to millions of viewers in 40 countries because when things went wrong he just threw them in the bin and carried on. Floyd’s last meal was oysters and partridge with champagne.

But they’re a loveable combination of the earthy and the posh – for all their posh preferences, they’re a down to earth sign with cold systems that love slow-cooked hot food and solid hearty nosh: roasted game, dark fruits and rich wines, and it was Capricorn ELIZABETH DAVID, pre-eminent cookery writer of the mid 20th century, who brought regional and rural Mediterranean
cooking to Brits worn down by post-war rationing and dull food at a time when Meditteranean ingredients were mostly unavailable and olive oil only obtainable from pharmacies.
Liz took off early adventuring round the Meditteranean on a boat with her married lover, hung out in the Greek islands with famous writers and lived with various boyfriends in Crete, Alexandria and Cairo.  She pioneered the modern writing style of describing
food in its context and historical background with anecdotal asides.

Capricorn chefs love roasted or baked recipes that take hours to prepare because cooking’s their therapy that helps them unwind and release those pent-up emotions at the chopping board.

Capricorn chef BERNARD LOISEAU‘s discerning palate, fanatic attention to detail and frenetic work ethic won him the coveted 3 Michelin stars along with the highest possible honours awarded by the French government, but after the Gault Millau guide downgraded his restaurant from 19/20 to 17/20 Loiseau shot himself ­ a cautionary tale of how some Capricorns can take themselves way too seriously.

Unlike my favorite domestic goddess, kitchen queen and food porn star the Honorable NIGELLA LAWSON, who won a thousand pound bet by eating 30 pickled eggs in ten minutes.  She went into labour with her daughter while eating a
slice of pizza and hanging onto a bookshelf in agony, but when her sister kindly tried to relieve her of the pizza she snarled don’t touch my food.  Channeling Miss Piggy with her lush descriptions of the joys of comfort food, the divine Miss Nigella says: “When I see a picture of someone who’s hugely fat I don’t think how hideous, I think how delicious it must have been to get there.”

And lastly, my friend and personal favorite Capricorn chef, Australia’s godfather of cooking TONY BILSON.  We shared a house when he left home in Colac Victoria and moved in with his Larousse cookbook under his arm to a Toorak Rd mansion full of people off their faces on experimental substances.  Through all the madness Bilson just kept turning out beautiful French food on one of those Aussie Early Kooka gas stoves, which we in no way appreciated and were usually too wasted to taste.  I did stints in the kitchen at several of his restaurants (Albion, Tony’s Bon Gout, Berowra Waters) just because they were the most happening places to be, because Tony’s genius was for orchestrating the marriage of food and people – the Bon Gout was the place to eat during the Whitlam years, and at Kinsela’s he brought restaurant and theatre worlds together in the throbbing hub of Oxford Street.
Typically Tony talks in terms of ‘the experience’, because for him the art of cooking is turning food into a celebration of being alive.  And with trademark Capricorn earthiness he says : “It’s a fabulous craft to be involved in, so ephemeral. A great dish today, shit tomorrow.”

One of the recipes he cooked at Toorak Rd in the Sixties:

MOHR IM HEMD (MOOR IN HIS NIGHTSHIRT)

for 6:

Ingredients:

100 g (4 oz) butter
100 g sugar
100 g plain grated chocolate
100 g ground almonds
6 eggs, separated
5 ml (1 tsp) coffee essence [not seen in shops since the 60s, so we think a strong sweetened espresso would work – careful not to add too much liquid]

Sauce: 175 g (6 oz) plain chocolate
175 ml water
75 g unsalted butter

Cream: 150 ml (1/4 pt) single cream
150 ml double cream
15 – 30 ml (1 – 2 tbsp) icing sugar
a few drops vanilla extract.

Method:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in egg yolks one at a time. Add chocolate, almonds and extract.
3. Whisk egg whites until stiff, fold gently into chocolate mixture.
4. Butter + dust with caster sugar 6 souffle dishes. Pour in choc  mix.
5. Place in a roasting tin, half full of hot water. Bake in oven at 180°C (350°F) Gas 4 for 30 – 40 minutes until puffed and just firm.
Cool for a few minutes.
6. For sauce put chocolate and water in pan. Stir over low heat until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and stir in butter.
7. Whisk single + double creams together till fluffy.  Add icing sugar + vanilla.
8. Spoon a little sauce on to each serving plate. Invert puddings onto sauce
and cover with whipped cream.

Lilith