Category Archives: RADIO SHOW POSTS

Gay Bilson & Francisco Smoje

On air on Bayfm 99.9 Community radio, Byron Bay, on 23 July 2012

 

WRITER, COLLECTOR, RESTAURATEUR, LEGEND, GAY BILSON ON WRITING ABOUT FOOD

Gay Bilson

Today we start a month-long banquet of writers on belly with Gay Bilson, a woman who says she was a late bloomer in gastronomical matters, and attempted to retire early.  Somehow she has managed to run two legendary places in the history of Australian restaurants.  First with then husband Tony Bilson at Tony’s Bon Gout in the ’70s, haunt of politicians, gourmets and other reprobates; then for 18 years as owner and restaurateur  at Berowra Waters Inn on the Hawkesbury river, where the journey, the building, the place were as memorable as the wonderful food.  And then at that little known spot, the Sydney Opera House, at the Bennelong restaurant.  However, at a previous Byron Bay Writers Festival she has said that she has always wanted to write a book – restaurants were just a “25 year glitch”  With “Plenty – Digressions on Food” (Penguin, 2004),  she turned out a book that is very beautiful both as an object and for the writing.  It is one of my favourite books on food, and won a bunch of awards including the Age book of the year.  One of the many passions that shines out of “Plenty” is Gay’s love of reading.

Her latest book is “On Digestion”, part of Melbourne University Publishing’s “Little Books on Big Themes” series.   The Writers’ Centre tells me Gay’s titles are out of print, but you can find them at our local library, which even has an interesting little book on Australia’s culinary history: “Acquired Tastes”, with a contribution by Gay.

This year as well as appearing on Writers Festival panels, she is running a workshop titled : “What we talk about when we talk about food”, on Tuesday 31 July.

“What is it we are addressing when we write about food? What should we be addressing? What do you want to address? What words best serve your purpose?

If food is a shared material, economic and cultural concern for all people, then we need food journalism to include serious and informed writing about food security, food waste, food pricing, food distribution, food and health, and, especially, agriculture and all that agriculture entails – climate, soil, labour, the uses to which land is put.”  (Workshop description from festival site, click on link for more) i

One thing that is missing from the workshop info – very important – Gay would like all participants to bring something to eat together, and has promised to bring something she has made.

Gay Bilson “has been a frequent contributor to The Monthly and continues to write for Australian Book Review. Her essays have been published in Voracious (Hardie Grant, 2011) and Island magazine, University of Tasmania, 2012.  She is now a local, having recently moved to Bangalow.” (from the festival site)

So today on belly Sister T  talked about food writing with Gay Bilson, a woman who notices the sound of charcoal and the sandwiches of fictional detectives, a collector of fallen nests and beautiful bowls, a mailer of soup and maker of tripe tablecloths.

And we had fun having a good old growl about the lack of respect given to people and writers who are interested in food.  If you meet Gay at the festival, it might be an idea not to call her a ‘foodie’.

If you are going to that great feast of thinking, talking, reading and writing that is the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, you can catch Gay Bilson on:

Friday 9am – “collectables : the bounty of our desires”

Saturday 12.30pm – “real food”

Sunday 2.15pm – “nests”

For more information on 2012 Byron Bay Writers Festival authors, tune in to bayfm and listen to to Karena on Arts Canvass,  on air Thursdays 9 to 11.  Every week until the festival, she will be doing interviews at 10.20 am.  And subscribe before the end of July to go in a draw for 2 lots of 3 day festival passes.

This week on Arts Canvass Karina is talking to:

Alex Miller – ‘Autumn Laing’

Arnold Zable – ‘Violin Lessons’

Ailsa Piper – ‘Sinning across Spain’

Jonathon Parsons – Byron Writers Fest Director

Dev Lengel – Byron Writers Fest Sculpture Show

 

FRANCISCO’S HIDEAWAY

 

And then we are off to the beautiful Coorabell Hall, saved by a bunch of heroic music and life lovers for all sorts of interesting events, and currently hosting a mini-series (only 3 so far) of POP UP DINNERS by Argentinian Chef Francisco Smoje.  The pop up restaurant is a relatively new concept that has already been abused and misused in the big cities, but pretty new around here, and this looks like the real deal.  Francisco says :

“I might give people a hint of which produce I will use found in a friends gardens or local markets. You don’t have to go through the intellectual process of choosing what you are going to eat. Everyone on the table has the same flavours in their mouth. Its one of the things I love most, it’s like going to a friends house, but you never call your friend and ask ‘hey what are you cooking for me?’ you just go and relax and enjoy what they have prepared.”

“When people come to my dinners, it’s usually only my partner Emma and myself that work the floor. The food is shared on the table, we never change the plates till desert and people really respond to this.”

“I like the fact that everyone comes at the same time and eats at the same time as if they were one group of friends. Everyone has the same sensations with the food at the same time. It’s not like going to a restaurant when you’re at one table having a starter and your first glass of wine and you’re all loud and next to you is a couple that’s having a desert and want to talk mellow. Here it’s like everyone goes onto a roller-coaster at the same time and experiences similar things, and I think that’s really special.”

Today on belly we will talk about the fun and the challenges of doing a pop up restaurant, and as many of Francisco’s adventures as we can fit in, from his Argentinian childhood, to exploring the 3-hat restaurants of Australia at 21, to his North Coast experiences with growers and food producers (I especially want to hear about the Mullumbimby butcher), and providing tasty food and eye candy as a movie caterer.

Francisco’s Table opens at Coorabell Hall on the following Sundays the 15th July (yes already gone), 5th August and 26th August.  [Francisco has now decided to do the dinners about every 3 weeks for a while, maybe with some guest chefs in future].

To book & more info see here

And if you are on facebook, details and an olive recipe : www.facebook.com/FranciscosTable

Here is a chorizo and sweet potato recipe.

And Francisco has promised us a panna cotta recipe, very popular at the first pop up dinner.

Here it is now – enjoy.

 

CARDAMON-VANILLA PANNA COTTA WITH CITRUS CARAMEL

By Francisco Smoje

 

[note : you need to start the day before you want to serve this]

 

PANNA COTTA

1 L cream

1 vanilla pod

10 cardamom pods

120 gm sugar

4 gelatin sheets

 

CITRUS CARAMEL

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup mandarin juice

 

For panna cotta – crack cardamom pods and cut vanilla pod lengthways, place in a pot with cream and sugar, simmer for 15 minues for flavours to infuse being careful of not boiling.

Soak gelatin in cold water, strain cream, squeeze gelatin and mix into strained cream until dissolved.

Cool mix by placing in a bowl on top of ice water and stir with wooden spoon.

Place into moulds and refrigerate overnight.

For caramel – place water and sugar in a small pot, boil until caramel stage (about 8 minutes) quickly add mandarin juice and reduce temperature and simmer until caramel coats back of a spoon.  Let caramel cool down.

To serve run a knife carefully around panna cotta and submerge panna cotta mould in a bit of hot water for 10 seconds or so to help unmould. Place in a bowl and spoon over some of the caramel.  If desired you can add a sprinkle of roasted almond flakes.

 

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

In the bulletin today just a big ‘congratulations’ to local legend Helena Norberg-Hodge, filmmaker  and food activist, for winning the Japan based Goi Peace Award.  She is the first woman and the first bellysister to win the award, given for her “pioneering work in the new economy movement to promote a more sustainable and equitable world”. The citation reads in part, “Through your outreach and educational activities advocating for localization, you have contributed to the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”  More about Helena here

 

MUSIC

Thanks to Gay Bilson for bringing us music from one of her favourite composers, Dmitri Shostakovich

Prelude & Fugue no 3 in G major, and Prelude no 1 in C major, pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva

Koechlin, Evening Song, pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska

Astor Piazzolla, Marron Y Azul and Contrastes

Fulana, Encerrada en la Ciudad

Gotan Project, El Capitalismo Foraneo

 

love and chocolate covered mandarins, sister T

getting lemony with Tegs and Nicky

A big thank you to guest bellysister Tegs for sistering the belly today and inviting one of our favourite cooks, animal lover and Bay Fm co-office manager with the lovely Lina, NicKy.  Nicky also shares her tunes, and shaggy dog stories, on Fridays at 9am on bayfm, Byron Bay’s one and only community radio station – see here.

 

here are Nicky’s recipes for you :

 

BAKED CHICKEN WITH LEMON, POTATO AND GREEN OLIVES

 

1KG roasting potatoes cut into chunks

1 red onion peeled and segmented

1/2 a cup of green olives (Sicilian)

1 lemon, sliced

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock

1.7 Kg chicken, jointed, or chicken pieces or breast

1 Tbs olive oil

sea salt and ground pepper

flat leaf parsley, chopped to serve

 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Place potatoes, onion, olives,lemon and bay leaves in roasting tin and pour over stock. Place chicken pieces on top. Drizzle with olive oil and seasoning. Roast 50 minutes or until chicken is golden. Remove chicken and put on warm plate, cover with tin foil. Turn up oven to 200C and return roasting tin for 10 minutes to brown other stuff. Place chicken back on top, sprinkle with parsley and serve. YUM!

Hint: I par boil the potatoes first for 10 minutes to soften.

If you use chicken breast, cover the pieces with the peeled onion and place potatoes on top, so as not to dry out the chicken. That way, the potatoes roast better as well. You don’t have to remove chicken, just leave in and roast.

 

LEMON LAYER PUDDING

 

grated rind and juice of one lemon

50G butter

100G sugar

2 eggs, separated

50G self raising flour

300 mL milk

 

1. Add the lemon rind to the butter and sugar and whisk the mixture until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and flour and beat well. Stir in the milk and 30-45 ml (2-3 tbsp) lemon juice.

2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, fold in and pour the mixture into a buttered oven proof dish.

3. Stand in a shallow tin of water and cook at 200C, (400F, gas mark 6) for about 45 minutes, until the top is set and spongy to the touch. This pudding will separate into a custard layer with a sponge topping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Food Feast

 

Talofa Lave … SISTER RASELA here to warm the cockles of your belly with yummy stories of food and fantastic-ness that seem to be abundant in this incredible area we are blessed to live in.

Last night was no exception in the ‘wandering happily around Byron looking for dinner’ game. I’d worked up quite an appetite having played some records beneath the giant fig tree in the garden of the Buddha Bar with 3 other BayFM DJ’s. SUNSET SESSIONS rolls from 4 til 10pm. Great little groove on a Sunday to keep you warm.

With belly stirring I headed for the Cardoman Pod vegetarian cafe at the end of the boardwalk arcade on Lawson Street. I love it there. Here’s another reason why – I came away with a heavily discounted meal. Heavy as in free !! Gotta love Byron for the wonderful sharing nature of the place and people.

As i drifted back across the road, I became pleasantly mesmerised by a young man with golden ringlets, standing on the street in front of my car strumming his acoustic guitar and singing his dusky little soul out. I stopped and listened to the rest of his set while I sat on the bonnet of my car, beneath the stars and ate my free dinner.

When he finished and after i had clapped at the end of each of his songs, I bought his CD in a show of support and admiration and asked him if he wanted to come sing live on this mornings show … unfortunately he couldn’t. I assured him that i would be playing his music on the show. The beautiful thing about this story is that i discovered only this morning, that he’s playing at WILD FOOD FEAST … which is what my two guests today are organising and here to talk about. He is KIT BRAY. Love him.

Tasty radio is what we aim to bring you every week here on belly and this week was no exception as we welcomed into the studio two estatically ethereal, honorary belly sisters who have a lotta WILD somethin’s going on.

Lealah Shostak represented the Byron Nature Conciousness today. Perhaps something to do with growing up amongst the billion shades of dense, rolling green-ness up there in the back hills of Main Arm on Grandaddy’s land, eating food straight out of the lush, juicey garden … and Grandad still lives there by the way. It’s clearly obvious that this young lady is an angelic gift to the world, radiating such purity and honesty in her gentle quest to live respectfully and peacefully with our Earth and rubbing a bit of sparkle off on each of us lucky people who come in contact with her. Go Lealah !!

Sofi Asha on the otherfoot, comes from an urban sanctuary in shining Sydney. Refined, graceful and armed with a wicked recipe on how to turn a milk crate into a funky little garden, the other half of the initial collaboration for WILD FOOD FEAST has also just finished studying Permaculture and thought … ‘Hey, why not start a community garden – the FIRST i might add – in Byron’. I don’t think that a think lasts long in this young lady’s head before it’s an action. Go Sofi !!

You know Mitre 10 on the bend of Johnson Street up there heading South out of town ? There’s a carpark just before it that leads to and runs along beside the sadly neglected and disused railway line. From what i can gather, the new community garden must be there. Just head there, i have a feeling you won’t miss it … or want to.

This is also the ‘venue’ for their “WILD FOOD FEAST”.

Commencing at MIDDAY it’ll sail through til 5PM on SUNDAY 15TH JULY.

Music to feed your soul will be heard from –

KINDLING (three pieces of Kooii)

KIT BRAY (The Time He Waits is the EP of his i bought last night)

LIFE LINE (Winners of Bulesfest Youth competition)

POTATO POTATO (also headlined in youth competition at Bluesfest)

There will be WILD workshops with Peter Hardwick who’s going to be taking strolls with anyone who wants to go with him, around the urban streets of Byron hunting for WILD food. Teaching us that there is an abundance of natural FOOD around us at all times …. we just don’t know it ! Take a tiki tour of the WILD kind and FEAST on nature with Peter.

All proceeds will go towards buying new solar panels for the community space of the Mullum Civic Hall a current project of the Byron Nature Conciousness (the local youth run non-profit environmental group).

The Byron Youth Nature Conciousness and the Byron Movement are holding the community event and the afternoon is going to be packed with so much deliciousness. Enter the raffles with wicked prizes, guzzle some chai to help you chat faster so that you can fit in all the amazing conversations you are going to have if you go. There’s going to be all these great local musicians, WILD food tastings, friends and family … sounds super yummy on a Sunday !!!

This project has also been given a small change grant from the Byron Shire Council. Thank you !!

To find out more about this event so you can get yo sexy ass down there go to their facebook event page WILD FOOD FEAST or just go !!!

dO It Do iT

xxr

food books ain’t what they was & eating the whole cow

On air on Bayfm 99.9 community radio on July 2, 2012

 

Well maybe not the hair…or the skin.  Though I read that buffalo hide is a popular ingredient in Bhutan.   Here on the North Coast of NSW we feed our minds each year with a large serve of writers, at the Byron Bay Writers Festival.  And each month Miss Alison Drover feeds our bellies with in season deliciousness.  For July she is thinking about eating a whole cow, particularly the tail, a.k.a. oxtail, more versatile than I ever realised.  And yes you can vegetarianise the recipes.  Mooo.  (That’s ‘good’ in cow)

Today on belly, Jonathan Parsons, director of the2012  Byron Bay writers festival, talked about the authors who have written on food & will be on panels at the festival, no traditional cookbook writers but some very interesting takes on the world of food, Gay Bilson is teaching a workshop, & there will be a few dinners seasoned with great writers. In the second half of belly, miss July warmed us up with in season deliciousness, & we met a 9 year old food blogger who is now up to about 7 million visits on her site.

 

WHO IS COMING TO THE 2012  BYRON BAY WRITERS FESTIVAL

(Excerpts from the Festival website, full details here)

Charlotte Wood has been described as “one of the most intelligent and compassionate novelists in Australia” (The Age), and “one of our finest and most chamaleonic writers” (The Australian).  Her latest work is a book of contemplations on cooking, Love & Hunger: Thoughts on the Gift of Food.

Wayne Macauley is a highly acclaimed writer…His most recent novel, The Cook (Text, 2011), has been nominated a Pick of The Week (The Age & Sydney Morning Herald), Review of the Week (Sunday Age), Must Read (Sunday Herald Sun) and Book of the Week (Brisbane Sunday Mail), receiving many four and five star reviews. It has been listed as ‘Favourite Australian Fiction’ on ABC Radio National, a ‘Book of the Year’ in the Weekend Australian, ‘Best Fiction of 2011’ at Readings Bookshop and ‘Best of This Year’s Releases’ in the Sunday Herald Sun.

Mungo MacCallum has established himself as one of Australia’s most influential and entertaining political journalists, broadcasters and commentators.  He is the author of eight books on politics. His latest book is Eat My Words, which will launched at this year’s Festival on Friday 3 August at 4pm.  [ “Because every other bugger is doing it”.]

Jim Hearn is a researcher, writer and chef. As a chef, Jim has worked in commercial kitchens for over twenty years. Jim wrote High Season: a memoir of Heroin and Hospitality, after he quit his job as head chef at Rae’s on Watego’s in Byron Bay and enrolled in the writing program at Southern Cross University as a mature-age student. Louise Thurtell picked up the manuscript for High Season through Allen & Unwin’s Friday pitch session.

The wonderful Gay Bilson will present a workshop on food writing, called “What we talk about when we talk about food.  Details here.

And there are three literary food events, details here.  Jonathan says he loves those sorts of events at festivals because that is where the best conversations happen.

Also check out Charlotte Wood’s blog, “How to shuck an oyster”, all sorts of meditations and investigations of the world of food.  I was an instant fan.  There will be a permanent link from the belly site, but for now see here.

 

MARVELLOUS MARTHA

 

Have you heard about a 9 year old Scottish girl called Martha Payne? This year she started a blog to talk about the lunches provided by her school. Some days she loved them, but often she came home hungry. Some days the meals were too small, or just not good, which is why the blog is called Never Seconds. For example, she says the kids were not allowed fruit unless they had finished everything else on the tray. It quickly became a sensation, with kids sending pictures from schools all over the world, and Martha started to raise a lot of money for school lunches in a poor community in Africa through the blog. Soon the local council, in charge of providing the food to schools, dragged Martha from maths class and told her she could no longer take photos of her lunch. This caused such a swell of support and protest that the Argyll and Bute council reversed its ban and the blog now is up to about 7 million visits.  As most artists know, getting banned is great publicity.   But it’s an impressive effort if you are only 9 years old.  If you or your kids are bored during the holidays, maybe a little writing project is the answer.  Martha is also on holidays, and has asked schools from around the world to be guest bloggers on Never Seconds.  But even if nobody you know will ever darken the doorstep of a school again, those lunch tray pictures from around the world are very interesting, a window into other places.  Putting food into our own mouths and bodies is an intimate, important and literally visceral thing.  The food consumed by primary school kids feels like something that is building the people of our future, as much as everything they learn in class.

The Byron Bay Community Centre is also running a whole heap of classes for kids during these school holidays, including cooking classes with Ali, aka our wonderful seasonal bellysister Alison Drover.  It is called Kid Around.

 

NOSE TO TAIL EATING – BY MISS JULY, ALISON DROVER

On Belly today we discussed the‭ idea of eating everything from‭ ‬“nose to tail‭”‬ which simply put means considering that when we eat‭ ‬we should not be looking at wasting a life just for some choice eye fillet steaks.‭ ‬ Imagine a cow that just was made of eye fillet steaks‭!‬ There are other parts of the animal that are food for us and also contain‭ ‬varying nutritional‭ ‬benefits i.e.‭ ‬livers,‭ ‬marrow in bones of the oxtail and so worth and by discovering what these parts are and how to cook them we are ensuring that when an animal is killed is has fed as many people as possible and very little has been wasted.

Consider the other types of the animal in winter and chat to your butcher or farmer about stocking some of these cuts and making them more available.‭ ‬If you and a group of your friends shops at the butcher share recipes ideas so that it makes it worthwhile for the butcher to keep these cuts i.e.‭ ‬more customers and in turn you will be helping the planet too.

Oxtail is the tail of the cow‭…‬ amazing meat cooked slowly and one of the best bones for stock.‭ ‬Enjoy‭…

Reading‭ ‬– perhaps after you you have  eaten‭ ‬http://www.theecologist.org/green_green_living/food_and_drink/1299412/nose_to_tail_eating_its_sustainable_but_can_you_stomach_this_type_of_meat.html

 

JULY BEST IN SEASON

 

beautiful ugly lemons - photo Alison Drover

Time to celebrate citrus‭ ‬– make marmalade,‭ ‬compote and try candied fruits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soup making time so that you can snuggle up earlier at night.

 

FRUIT

Bananas, Carambola, Chestnuts, Custard apples, Fuji apples, Grapefruit, Kiwifruit

Lemons, Limes, Mandarins, Nashi, Navel oranges, Packham pears, Panama passionfruit

Pears, Persimmons, Pink lady apples, Quinces,

Red delicious apples, Rhubarb, Ruby red grapefruit

 

VEGETABLES

Baby fennel, Baby red capsicums, Beetroot, Broccoli, Brown onions, Brussels sprouts

Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Chinese greens

Dutch carrots, English spinach, Fennel, Gai lan‭ (‬Chinese broccoli‭)

Garlic, Ginger, Jerusalem artichokes, Kumara or sweet potatoes, Leeks

Parsnips, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Rosemary, Sage, Silverbeet, Spinach, Witlof

 

A tale of winter‭ ‬ – Miss July‭’‬s Oxtail Warmer


Miss July, blue with cold but fearlessly collecting ingredients

Enough for‭ ‬2‭ ‬but make more for the freezer

 

an oxtail‭ ‬-‭ ‬cut into joints

flour‭ ‬-‭ ‬a little for dusting the oxtail

cayenne pepper

ground black pepper

salt

butter‭ ‬-‭ ‬thick slice

carrots‭ ‬3,‭ ‬peeled and roughly chopped

1‭ ‬fennel chopped roughly‭ (‬optional‭)

onions‭ ‬-‭ ‬about‭ ‬2,‭ ‬peeled and roughly chopped

celery‭ ‬-‭ ‬a rib or two,‭ ‬chopped

seasonings‭ ‬-‭ ‬garlic and bay leaves‭ (‬4‭ ‬or‭ ‬5‭)‬,‭ ‬plus one or two from:‭ ‬orange peel,‭ ‬juniper berries,‭ ‬thyme

tin of chopped tomatoes local please or if in season fresh tomtaoes

a bottle of strong red wine‭ (‬like an Aussie shiraz‭)

 

-Preheat oven to‭ ‬160C.‭ ‬Trim the meat of fat and toss each joint into flour that you have seasoned with the cayenne,‭ ‬mustard powder and ground black pepper.

-Melt the butter in a roasting tin and seal the meat.‭ ‬Turn each piece as it colours,‭ ‬then add the carrots,‭ ‬onions,‭ ‬celery and some chopped garlic and let them colour a little,‭ ‬in the rapidly disappearing butter.

-Add the bay leaves,‭ ‬then pour over the wine and tinned tomatoes,‭ ‬and add in any extra seasonings‭ ‬-‭ ‬a few strips of orange peel,‭ ‬8‭ ‬or‭ ‬10‭ ‬juniper berries,‭ ‬or a few sprigs of thyme.

-Bring to the boil,‭ ‬cover with oiled greaseproof paper and place in the oven for an hour.‭ ‬After an hour the meat will be brown‭; ‬then turn the meat over and leave for a further hour.‭ ‬The sauce will have reduced and become intensely flavoured‭; ‬there will not be a great deal of it,‭ ‬especially if you haven’t added the tinned tomatoes,‭ ‬but it will be strong and sticky.‭ ‬With the tomatoes,‭ ‬there will be more sauce with less intensity of flavour,‭ ‬but also extremely tasty.

-Serve‭ ‬with mashed potato,‭ ‬crushed tinned cannellini beans,‭ ‬or mashed root vegetables.

 

Miss July has some free cooking classes coming up, all ages these ones, through the Byron Community College and the

Love Food Hate Waste‭ ‬campaign, details here.

 

by Alison Drover.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

– In Byron Bay, the YAC this Thursday July 5 is having a fundraiser with non-alcoholic gluhwein & other goodies, music,performances. It goes to support their work with young people, starts at 5.30 pm. There’s also a 1 day barista course for young people on July 17.

In Sydney, Michael Pollan, author of “The omnivore’s dilemma” & “in defence of food” , will be speaking at the Opera House on July 10. He is one of the people changing the way we think about food through his journalism. Someone please get him to this area.  Info here

& in Coorabell, at the hall, Argentinian chef Francisco Smoje will be hosting 3 pop up dinners, starting Sunday July 15. What’s a pop up dinner and who is Francisco? Tune in to belly on the 23rd of July to find out. Or check out his site.

 

MUSIC

 

I wrote a novel, by The trouble with Templeton  (his name is Thomas Calder, he’s from Brisbane, and who was Templeton? The bellysisters don’t know)

Manana, by Bustamento, Nicky Bomba’s new band (that’s the day some of us will finally start to write a novel)

The Never Seconds Song, by the totally fabulous Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppets, they wear kilts, they beat up the daleks, check em out on YouTube

Motion, by Hinterlandt, another fab solo Australian artist, to finish belly for another week.

 

Love and chocolate covered novelists, Sister T

M i l k i n g i t

Talofa and Good milky Monday morning to you. Sister Rasela here with you this morning, buckled in for another exciting episode in the belly kitchen where each week from 11 til midday we take you on a culinary adventure and discuss all kinds of topics related to food. Sometimes we roam far and wide for our stories and as we speak I’m sure Sister Tes is brewing something up for next weeks show but mostly we like to keep them local and relevant. Yesterday I grazed around the pastural streets of Byron and had lunch in an incredibly conscious café where they have a whole wall dedicated to sharing information about many of the things that we as consumers might take
for granted. One of those things might be MILK. Mothers, powdered, animal, carton, fresh from the udder, however you got it in those first days of your life, we all got it. How many of us still need it ? I wanted to find out.

Excited much !!

Where better to stand but outside one of our local supermarkets. Lots of people rush in to grab a pint or two (next best thing to the pub some say) and i thank you all for paying attention to this BayFM busker. It was me gently nudging a microphone in the happy faces of you shoppers and passers by, trying to get you to part with your voice as well as your thoughts and opinions so that i could get an idea of not only the diversity of you lovely people in the Shire on this particular day, but also the variations of your favorite white stuff. Bottled, bucketed, raw, flavoured, soy, rice, nut milks, skimmed milk, full fat, half fat, homogenised, goats, buffalo’s, a twist of kaluha. You all very gracefully gave your choices and why. Some were educated conclusions and some thought about only once the question was actually asked …

Q. “What milk do you drink?”

A. “Full cream, normal stuff”

Q. “Why?”

A. “Why not ??” was one answer !!

Well, we’ll here from a few other members of our community. One or two people mentioned a brand name and that’s not because I am indorsing any of the brands, I just thought it important to leave it in because they went on to explain why that was their choice which was more what I wanted to get across.

Let’s have a listen to what some of you folk out there in the Shire had to say when i asked the question … What kind of MILK do you drink and WHY ?? – audio

Shake it up baby !!

Did you have tea or coffee this morning with milk ? Did you splash it on your cereal ? Are you drinking a glass of it now ? Are you looking forward to sinking a glass of it later ? If you answered yes to any of the above, then what’s your preference and WHY ?

I guess why is the important word here because when I did some super sleuth secret squirrel investigating, into what milk was available to us here from your average supermarket, guess how many variations of MILK I found ? I bet you can’t …. Ok, I’ll help you.

One hundred and nine !!!!!!! There were 61 on the shelves of the pre packedvariety and another forty eight in the refrigerated section. That’s alot of choice for a town that has a popultion of around 9,ooo.

There is no right or wrong, and if there is, it’s up to YOU can decide what is best for you alone.As a nutritionist and a presenter here on this beautiful community radio station of ours, it gives me great joy to open up little pockets of information that you otherwise may not have known, and give you as much of that information as possible so that you can take control of your own life and make informed and educated decisions on what you put into … INTO … this uniquely gorgeous body of yours.

Blended in with all of that, like a creamy banana smoothie, I’m going to play you some local and Australian music from the likes of Kooii and Kingfisha who were here in town on Saturday night and had me movin and groovin non stop for hours, keeping both warm and fit as their amazing musicianship filled the soul, just as good food does the belly, leaving me feeling very happy.

Here’s a track from Bobby Alu, who provides the percussion side of things for Kooii, and who you may also recognize as the drummer for Oka. He’s pretty hard to miss, my beautiful Samoan brother. This track is called “Love you more” – http://youtu.be/VqlEkbX72F0

I’ll be back to squeeze some fresh drops out of the milking udder and fill you in on what you might not already know about the great white !!

Queen and cake

Good rainy Monday ‘Queens birthday long weekend’ morning to you. Sister Rasela here to splash around in puddles with you this morning as we take a dive into the belly show and wade around in the land of birthday cakes.
Well it is her Maj’s birthday (officially it’s actually the 21st of June but celebrated on the second Monday of the month) so I gathered a bit of info on Lizzie to start the show with and from there we’ll move onto the lucious land of birthday cakes and find out their history, traditions and other interesting and quirky facts. A little later in the show I’m going to read you a cake story … from the perspective of a 4 year old so perhaps you might want to get cosy, make a brew, relax and enjoy the Queens birthday with us here, on your community radio station, where we never take a break. Yup, we’re here for you 24 hours a day 7 days a week, pumping out the love and good vibrations across the wet and wild airwaves today and every day.

Even when it’s raining the sun is always shining from the heart of town. I hope you can feel the warmth on these wintery days, and remember if you can’t, maybe you need to turn the volume up a little next time you’re listening ??

Whether you’re in your car, your home, your workplace or your headphones, thank you for tuning into the beautiful BayFM and for the lend of your gorgeous ears and eyes if you are reading online. You’re belly is safe with us … Happy Monday !!!

Ahem ! I present to you THE QUEEN’S titbits and trivia …

Did someone say titbits ?

Born in 1926, Elizabeth was crowned Queen on 2 June 1953 and is currently fourth in the all-time list of longest serving British monarchy. Her great achievements include creating a new species of dog – the dorgi – when one of her corgis mated with a dachshund named Pumpkin belonging to Princess Margaret. So far there have been eight dorgis born into the world at the palace.

I saw a TV show about her a few years ago, and one thing I remember is that she has the same thing for breakfast each day: a type of cookie called Marie Biscuits, while she waits for her bath to be drawn: an exact amount of inches deep at an exact temperature.

Her Maj lists taking afternoon tea among her favourite pastimes. Alongside her special blend of royal tea, taken strong with just a dash of milk, are scones, potted shrimps and thin cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Curries are a no-no on the palace menu as spicy foods just simply do not agree with Liz’s delicate taste buds. She prefers more simple and traditionally British meals such as roast beef, lamb cutlets and bread and butter pudding. A strict policy of no waste is also in operation with leftover roasts being recycled into shepherd’s pies and rissoles.

Hungry for lunch m'am ?

FAVOURITE FOOD: roast beef, lamb cutlets, shepherd’s pie, scones, bread and butter pudding, ice cream.

Her favourite apéritif is a Martini, shaken not stirred, finished with a twist of lemon rind.

A BBC documentary, All the Queen’s Cooks, revealed that tomatoes can only be served when all the pips have been removed to save them from becoming lodged in between the royal chompers and that it can take up to three hours for servants to lay the dinner table.

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson once famously escaped from a driving ban for speeding en route to the opening of the Channel Tunnel, where he was due to cook for the Queen. Having overslept suffering the after effects of a night out, he argued in court that he was forced to choose between the law and Queen and country. He escaped with a couple of points on his licence.

Thanks Liz ... you've been a good sport !

THE BIRTHDAY CAKE mmm mmmmm

The birthday cake has been an integral part of the birthdaycelebrations in Western cultures since the middle of the 19th century. Certain rituals and traditions, such as singing of birthday songs, associated with birthday cakes are common to many Western cultures. The Western tradition of adding lit candles to the top of a birthday cake originates in 18th-century Greece. However, the intertwining of cakes and birthday celebrations stretch back to the Ancient Romans. The development of the birthday cake has followed the development of culinary and confectionery advancement. While throughout most of Western history, these elaborate cakes in general were the privilege of the wealthy, birthday cakes are nowadays common to pretty much every Western birthday celebration. Around the world many variations on the birthday cake, or rather the birthday pastry or sweets, exist.

Whatcha smokin there Grandma ?

HISTORY

In classical Roman culture, ‘cakes’ of flat rounds made with flour containing nuts, leavened with yeast, and sweetened with honey were occasionally served at special birthdays, but more often at weddings as in Ancient Greece.

In early Europe, the words for cake and bread were virtually interchangeable; the only difference being that cakes were sweet while bread was not. In the 15th century, bakeries in Germany conceived the idea of marketing one-layer cakes for customers’ birthdays as well as for only their weddings, and thus the modern birthday cake was born. During the 17th century, the birthday cake took on more or less its contemporary form. However, these elaborate cakes, which possessed many aspects of contemporary cakes (such as multiple layers, icing, and decorations), were only available to the very wealthy. Birthday cakes became more and more proletarianized as a result of the industrial revolution, as materials and tools became more advanced and more accessible.

The service of a birthday cake is often preceded by the singing of “Happy Birthday to You” in English speaking countries or an equivalent birthday song in the appropriate language of that country. In fact, the phrase “Happy Birthday” did not appear on birthday cakes until the song “Happy Birthday to You” was popularized in the early 1900s. Variations on birthday song rituals exist. For example, in New Zealand, “Happy Birthday to You” is sung and is followed by clapping, once for each year of the person’s life and once more for good luck (well, i grew up in NZ and we never did that … i’ve still been pretty lucky though !) In Uruguay, party guests touch the birthday person’s shoulder or head following the singing of “Happy Birthday to You”. In Ecuador, sometimes the birthday person will take a large bite off the birthday cake before it is served.

The birthday cake is often decorated with small taper candles, secured with special holders or simply pressed down into the cake. In North America, Australasia and the U.K., the number of candles is equal to the age of the individual whose birthday it is, sometimes with one extra for luck. Traditionally, the birthday person makes a private wish, which will be realized if all the candles are extinguished in a single breath.

A birthday cake is shared amongst all the people attending a birthday party. This represents sharing of joy and togetherness. As a courtesy, it reflects one’s hospitality and respect for guests.

Come on now Emery ... that's not very nice !

CANDLES

The earliest reference to the tradition of blowing out the candles was documented Switzerland in 1881. Researchers for the Folk-Lore Journal recorded various “superstitions” amongst the Swiss middle class. The following statement was recorded, ““A birthday-cake must have lighted candles arranged around it, one candle for each year of life. Before the cake is eaten the person whose birthday it is should blow out the candles one after another.”  This tradition can also be traced to Kinderfest (Kinder is the German word for ‘children’), an 18th century German birthday celebration for children. In 1746, a large birthday festival was held for Count Ludwig Von Zinzendorf of Marienborn Germany. Andrew Frey described the party in detail and mentions, “there was a Cake as large as any oven could be found to bake it, and Holes made in the cake according to the years of the person’s age, every one having a candle stuck into it, and one in the Middle.” A letter written in 1799 by Goethe recounts: “…when it was time for dessert, the prince’s entire livery…carried a generous-size torte with colorful flaming candles – amounting to some fifty candles – that began to melt and threatened to burn down, instead of there being enough room for candles indicating upcoming years, as is the case with children’s festivities of this kind…” As the excerpt indicates, the tradition at the time was to place candles for each year of the individual’s life with some added candles ‘indicating upcoming years’.  Some also smear out the name of the person before slicing the cake to bring good luck.

How about just smearing it all over your face instead ?

The tradition of placing candles on birthday cake has also been attributed to early Greeks, who used to place lit candles on cakes to make them glow like the moon. Greeks used to take the cake to the temple of Artemis… The Moon Goddess. Some say that candles were placed on the cake because people believed that the smoke of the candle carried their prayers to gods. Others believe that the custom originated in Germany where people used to place a large candle in the centre of the cake to symbolize ‘the light of life’.

Nowdays people place candles on birthday cakes and a silent wish is made before blowing out the candle. It is believed that blowing out all candles in one breath means the wish will come true and the person will enjoy good luck in the coming year. In contemporary Western cultures, two rituals are prominent: the singing of the traditional birthday song and the blowing out of candles decorating the cake by the birthday person.

Today, we believe, that if we blow out all our candles in one breath, our wish will come true. (By the way, if there are 88 candles on your cake, it’s okay to ask others to blow (with) you.

BIRTHDAY CAKE VARIATIONS

Variations on the birthday pastry exist outside of Western culture. The Chinese birthday pastry is the sou bao (壽包), lotus-paste-filled buns made of wheat flour which are shaped and colored to resemble peaches. A single large pastry is not often served, rather each guest is served their own. In Korea, the traditional birthday dish is a seaweed soup. In Western Russia, birthday children are served fruit pies with a birthday greetings carved into the crusts. The Swedish birthday cake is made like a pound cake and is often topped with marzipan and decorated with the national flag. A Dutch birthday pastry are fruit tarts topped with whipped cream. The Mexican birthday tradition involves a piñata, a colored brittle container filled with candy.

ummm .. is this the shitty Chinese version ?

A number of historians believe that the birthday cake was first cooked-up in ancient Greece. The Greeks formed round or moon shaped honey cakes or bread and took them to the Temple of Artemis to honor the Goddess of the Moon. They placed candles on the cake so that it would glow like the moon, and the smoke of the lit candles carried their wishes and prayers to the Gods who lived up above, in the sky.

In medieval times, the English placed symbolic objects inside their cakes. Sometimes coins or thimbles were mixed into the batter. The person who bit into the coin was sure to be wealthy, while the poor person who found the thimble would never marry. (Oh my! Imagine that.) Needless to say, if the cake fell while baking it was believed an ominous sign and the poor
birthday girl or boy was guaranteed an entire year of bad luck.

Halfway through the 17th century, Europeans had made considerable advancement in the art of cake-making. They’d begun to create the precursor to today’s modern cakes. This was mainly thanks to technological development: reliable ovens, food moulds and refined sugar to make icing. Round cake hoops of wood and metal began to be used as moulds.

A SWEET PROGRESS

The first icing was made from a boiled composition of the finest available sugar, egg whites and various flavors. It was then poured on the cake, which was put back into the oven for a while. The cake was soon crowned with a hard, glossy, ice-like
covering. Molded cakes and fancy icing was hugely popular in Victorian times. The art of baking cakes progressed through the ages, and it was not until the middle of the 19th century that the modern cake as we now know it was born. The taste and appearance was enhanced with extra-refined white flour and baking powder (instead of yeast).

Amazing what can now be achieved with the introduction of icing ...

The ‘World’s Largest Birthday Cake’ was on display at Cashman Center in Las Vegas on Nevada May 15, 2005. The 1,30,000-pound cake, made as part of the City of Las Vegas’ Centennial celebration, was 102-feet long, 52-feet wide and 20 inches tall, and took 500 volunteers 14 hours to construct and decorate. A Sara Lee Foods facility in Tarboro, North Carolina baked the 30,240 half-sheet cakes needed for the project.

Here’s to luscious birthday cakes, sweet dreams and delicious wishes.

Here’s the wonderful birthday cake story i found and read out by Allie Brosh. Check out ‘Hyperbole and a Half’ to read and see more – God of Cake reading – audio

Hyperbole and a Half is a combination of web comic and blog written by Allie Brosh. The comic is drawn in Paintbrush and is intentionally artistically crude. It is a retelling of her life, and includes stories from her childhood as well as the challenges she faces as an adult. Brosh has also expanded the comic into a series of web videos in a similar style, which have been popular http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rambling vines & perfect pulses in the Seedsavers veggie patch

On air on Byron Bay’s community radio station, bayfm 99.9, on May 28, 2012

On a lovely sunny day in May I visited Jude and Michel Fanton, directors of the wonderful biodiversity foundation, Seedsavers.  We had green tea perched on the very second hand cement blocks which edge their garden beds.  The tea was a discovery during their recent travels, liasing with seed, permaculture, and other green groups around the world.  Summer is too hot to garden around here they say.  But right now is the perfect time.  Walking around the veggie patch with Jude until the mosquitoes drove us away, I started to feel much better about my “failures”, all those plants that will just not thrive in our humid, and occasionally very hot climate.  And about taking the easy way out in the garden.  The people who taught lots of us about collecting, drying and saving seeds now even often let the plants sort it out on their own, and somehow manage to have an exciting, varied and mostly vegetarian diet from their not particularly large patch, even though they go away from Byron Bay so often.  Jude calls it ‘using the soil as our seed bank’.  I also love the expression ‘bandicooting’, which means foraging around the patch getting bits and pieces at various stages of maturation.  The best idea of the day though was the solution to all those sad, mouldy zucchini plants that coastal gardeners normally need to bathe in asses milk and prayers to have any hope of picking a few sad little fruits.  Just give up on them altogether and grow pumpkins, which are basically weed hardy around here.  Pick the flowers, the shoots, and the half grown pumpkins, skin and all, to use as zucchini.  I had to ask Jude to repeat that one.  Yes half size pumpkins, so of course depending on the variety we are talking a whole lot of sizes, can be cooked as if they were zucchini.  I will certainly be going into the belly lab and investigating that one.

 

Jude had many more ideas on growing and using vegetables that grow easily in our area.   If you would like to follow us around the veggie patch, click on the audio links below.

 

Horseradish, gingers, leeks, shallots, mustard and more

 

Cambodian basil, chufa, sweet potato, thymes and more

 

Pumpkins, chokos and more

 

When the dark and the mosquitoes drove us away from the veggie patch, we went inside and Jude talked about two of her favourite perennials, pigeon peas and lima beans, which are some of the staples in her diet.  They also make very attractive barriers around the vegetable garden.  Lima beans are a vine, and pigeon peas a very attractive small tree.  Jude grew her lima beans on an old metal bunk bed frame.  Possibly and idea if you can’t get your large unwanted items to the tip?  Of course make sure they aren’t made of something that will leach nasties into your soil.

 

Click on the audio links below to hear Jude Fanton talk about two of her favourite pulses.

 

Lima beans

 

My friend the pigeon pea

 

MUSIC – EUROVISION YEEI

 

If you like stuff that’s so bad it’s good you’ve got to love Eurovision – and some of it is actually just good.  Not much admittedly.  The second place getters this year had to feature on belly – they danced and sang and baked biscuits!  And they were totally gorgeous Russian grannies.

 

 

 

In fifth place, a song that was just wild and beautiful, sung by a woman who had stepped straight out of a dark fairytale – and a pretty fab way to wear dreads.  Go Albania.

 


 

 

I also love the costumes and wild cockroach dancing by the Moldovan entry.   Check it out,  may have to play it soon, but it’s all about the look really.

 

Also on belly this week:

Walk the earth, Bianca Meyer

And Dirtgirl, a belly fave, Good Morning and Dig It

 

Love and chocolate pigeon peas, sister Tess

 

tree cabbages and food forests

On air on Byron Bay community radio bayfm 99.9 on May 14, 2012

Today belly was all about bio-diversity, about getting down and dirty and protecting our food supplies, and sharing our knowledge. And enjoying the delicious fruits of our labours of course. Shortly Jude Fanton, director of Seedsavers, told us about food networks they recently visited in New Zealand, Europe and Malaysia. Portuguese cabbage forests and monkeys that help make our fruit more delicious, among other stories. Then Suveran Dewsnap, head gardener at Starseed, talked about his dream of edible food forests, eating weeds, and adapting to our environment. To finish the show, two more wonderful artists from the very tasty food themed exhibitions at the Ballina Community Gallery.

 

FRESH REPORT : persimmons finishing, strawberries starting, lots of mandarins, dragonfruit, passionfruit
mint & fresh young ginger -maybe time for healthy  cold busting juices.  Week 3 markets include Mullumbimby this Saturday, Uki and Nimbin on Sunday.

 

SEEDSAVERS ON TOUR


Jude Fanton  is director with husband Michel of Seedsavers, founded in Byron Bay in 1986 to protect non-hybrid,traditional seeds and plant varieties, and to set up and assist non-profit seed networks and exchanges, here and abroad. These days they travel a lot, learning and teaching ways to protect biodiversity with like minded people all over the world. Their latest journey was to New Zealand, and last summer they travelled in Portugal, Spain, France and Malaysia. There are more than 700 videos of their travels, and lots of seedsaving advice, on the Seedsavers YouTube channel here.

 

Listen to the Seedsavers travels in Europe and Malaysia

 

listen to Jude Fanton’s New Zealand travels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALDO VERDE RECIPE

 

Jude spoke about caldo verde, the Portuguese national soup, or even national dish.  It means green soup, and is based on cabbage, preferably kale (or Portuguese tree cabbages).   Even if you can’t get hold of any tree cabbages, kale is pretty easy to get now (at least if you are lucky enough to live around here).  Just soften some chopped onion in olive oil, then add chopped garlic.  Then potatoes and stock or water.  If you like meat, traditionally some chorizo sausage goes in now, and some towards the end.  Cook until the potatoes are almost ready and falling apart, whizz the soup smooth if you prefer, then add lots of finely shredded kale and more chorizo.  The kale should still keep a bit of texture, not be really soft.  You can also add herbs like mint and parsley towards the end of cooking.

 

FOOD FORESTS

 

Suveran Dewsnap is head gardener at Starseed Gardens , a non profit organisation with all sorts of interesting projects, on among others, bio-char, aquaculture, hemp, and his passion for many years now, food forests.

 

Listen to Suveran on belly

 

Starseed Gardens will have workshops on planting a food forest , in Byron Bay in June.  This is what Suveran says about the importance of food forests.

“The beauty of food forests, in my view, is not just that they provide a variety of produce on an ongoing basis, when established, but, more importantly, as a permanent resource ( as opposed to annual cropping ). They are an ongoing propagation resource base that would be so vital in the event of a food supply crisis, with most tropical and subtropical perennial staples being easily reproduced by cuttings and tubers (sweet potato, cassava, Taro, Arrowroot and yam ) or abundant seed (as in the case of perennial legumes such as Lima beans ) Thus with some collaboration and a local knowledge base communities around the shire would be able to provide themselves with abundant food, relatively quickly. This, in my view, is the essence of food security. In the event of a natural disaster or disruption to the transport system there is probably no more than 2-3 days food on the supermarket shelves, and so, in an increasingly uncertain world, I now feel a sense of urgency to share the knowledge I have accumulated, and will be running a series of workshops around the country over the next 12 months, starting at Starseed gardens on the 1st-3rd of June. This workshop will cover various strategies for achieving a secure locally produced food supply including perennial food crops, the development of a food forest network across the shire, edible weeds, community collaboration, planting hardy plants for winter and preparing the ground for spring planting, followed by a comprehensive food forest planting workshop from August 31st to Sep 2nd which will include a range of seeds and cuttings to begin creating other food forests throughout the district.”

 

RECIPE – TARO WITH MISO AND TOFU, from Suvi

adapted from a recipe on www.justhungry.com

 

Suveran brought a bag of taro roots – some to plant, some to eat.  Lucky subscriber Bridget, who won them, is attempting to goat-proof a spot for the taro patch.  He suggests this recipe.  You can buy taro easily in local shops and markets.

 

5 or 6 smallish peeled taro roots

1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled

1 cup Japanese dashi stock or water

2 tbs white miso paste

1 tbs soy sauce

1/2  tbs raw sugar

 

Cut the taro into chunks.  Bring to a boil taro, dashi or water, tofu and sugar.  Cook on medium heat until almost all liquid is gone, then add the soy sauce and the miso (thinned to liquid consistency with a little water).  Simmer on low heat for a few minutes.  Serve hot or cold.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

Coming up this Thursday 17th & all weekend, the Noosa International Food Festival, chefs from all over Australia, Hong Kong and Turin, lots of good music.    On the June long weekend ABC Delicious magazine is organising a Byron Bay gourmet extravaganza, lots of visits to local producers and restaurants. ( See here) They both sound good if you have a fair bit of cash to spare.

On in Ballina right now and  free :

From Wednesday 2 May – 27 May 2012  (from the Gallery website)

“Table Manners: a spectacular installation of handmade ceramic dinnerware by ceramic artists Suvira McDonald, Malcolm Greenwood and Sue Fraser; textile artist Kirsten Ingemar; Ikebana artist Di Morison and food stylist Monique Guterres-Harrison (Seaweed Cuisine). Curated by Suvira McDonald.

Short and Sweet: exquisite pastel drawings depicting kitchenware and high tea treats by Katka Adams.

Produce-d: watercolours of farmers market produce by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Each Saturday for one year the artist visited her local farmers market (the Bangalow Farmers Market) and photographed her basket of produce. These were then translated as beautiful watercolour paintings and published in a recipe book, with recipes from market stall holders.

Food for Thought: still life paintings and mixed media by Barbara Zarletti and Peter Mortimore. Their contrasting styles offer exquisite views of quiet arrangements of food and kitchenware.”

 

Last week on belly we talked about food and painting with the presenter of the Bayfm arts show, Karena Wynn-Moylan. I hope you have a chance to check out last week’s post here with karena’s beautiful paintings and lots of seasonal recipes from her artistst’s cookbook.  Today I  played  interviews I recorded at the exhibition opening night with 2 other artists, Kirsten who works with fabric,and sound, and Peter who made great collages in honour of his mother’s old cookbooks.

 

Listen to Kirsten

 

Listen to Peter

 

MUSIC

 

Apart from the fado track, all the music today was thanks to the great community radio resource, airit,  maintained by Amrap, which supports Australian musicians, and community radio stations.   No money at all from the Federal government in this year’s budget, very disappointing, but they say they will keep the music coming. Senator Conroy is the one to contact if you want to support amrap.

 

Foreign Language by Flight Facilities, from Foreign Language Remixes

Fado Curvo by Mariza, from Nu Europe

Maybe When The Sun Comes Down,  XTREMIX By Cloud Control Richard In Your Mind

Forest Eyes  by Jinja Safari , from the Jinja Safari EP

Words and images by  Great Earthquake, from  Drawings

 


 

love and chocolate covered cabbages,  sister tess


 

 

 

 

Fresh and juicy art

On air on bayfm 99.9 community radio Byron Bay on May 7, 2012

 

 

"February" - from "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan

 

So one day the artist went to the market… The far North of NSW has attracted artists for many years, and now we have a lovely fresh produce market pretty much every day, so maybe it was inevitable that they would come together and create beautiful things.

Bayfm’s Arts Canvass presenter, Karena Wynn-Moylan, was inspired by the beautiful produce of her local Bangalow farmers market.  She photographed a year of fruit and veg, and documented it in watercolours and oils.  She also asked the farmers for their favourite simple recipes, and has done a lovely artist’s cookbook.  See below for some recipes.

We also have potters and fabric artists and cooks and ikebana magicians, and people on a mission to bring colour to our tables.  I was lucky enough to go to an exhibition in Ballina that is on all month and brings many of these people together.  I would really encourage you to go, the gallery itself is a lovely place, with a cafe and big old trees to sit under.

Here are some details :

Three Exhibitions are on, all on and around food and the table, until Sunday 27 May 2012

At : the Northern Rivers Community Gallery, 44 Cherry street Ballina
ph 6681 6167        free entry

All details click here

But I would be going along to this weekend’s Table Manners Makers’ Market, which has demos of ceramic hand-building and wheel-throwing by potters Suvira McDonald and Malcolm Greenwood.   You can also learn how to paint or draw your food.  Thank you very much to Karena for giving a place in her watercolour workshop on May 20 to one of our lovely subscribers.  If you’d like to go, ring  the gallery.   (It is $65pp inc. materials, 9.30 to 2pm).

If you can’t get to the exhibition, Karena’s number 1 bit of advice for anyone starting on painting or drawing still lives (aka food around here) is to think of the light.

And the lovely Miss May, Alison Drover of Fork in the Field, as well as lots of in season deliciousness for May, also had a crop of sustainable produce inspired, and very easy on the wallet, ideas for making your table and your food look beautiful.

Miss May's mandarins

 

Miss May Alison Drover

Preserve and conserve – yes it is the time for citrus much needed in winter.

Make marmalade, preserve lemons make compote and candied peel.

Find out more about my classes at the Byron Community Centre coming up next weekend

http://issuu.com/echopublications/docs/byroncollege-april-june-2012

 

Planting in May

Miss May says time is running out so get out in the garden and start planting so that you will have the abundance of vegetables through to winter.

Now is the time to plant broccoli, broad beans, beetroot, coriander, cabbages and Asian greens. Visit the Sustain website for a local regional planting guide. http://sustainfood.com.au/index.php?page=grow-what-s-in-season-vegetables.

This is also the time to save seeds from your summer crops so that you have them for the next year. Saving seeds helps safeguard the food security of the plant and is also a great way to ensure that the seeds you sow grow.

 

MANDARIN COMPOTE RECIPE – enough for breakfast for the week

 

· 20 mandarins

· 1 cinnamon quill

· 3 tablespoons raw honey

· 1 sprig thyme

15 ripe and sweet peeled mandarin. Separate them mandarin segments. I did not remove the transparent skin of the mandarin pieces, but I did open them to remove any seeds and to allow for the juice to come out while marinating them. Put the mandarins in a medium saucepan and cover with water marinate for 1 hour. Add honey and thyme, bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes, adding water when necessary to keep the mandarins covered at all times.

Remove and serve with yogurt for breakfast cold or warm slightly. The compote can be used as a side serve to a winter pudding or plain cake. You can also vary it by adding apples!

 

 

A big thank you to Karena for the permission to reproduce some pages from her artist’s cookbook, “Produce-d”.  The originals are double page spreads with the basket of produce paintings by Karena on the left, and the recipe on the right.

 

 

from "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan - leeks and mandarins are definitely in season - and following the rose petals on the footpath is usually the easy way to find the Bangalow Farmers Market

 

From "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan

 

From "May" in "Produce-d" By Karena Wynn Moylan

 

 

From "May" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Heather and her family sell tomatoes at the Bangalow and Byron Farmers Markets. They often have seconds which need to be used pretty quickly. This is a great recipe to use whenever the rain gods are a bit rough on the tomato patch.

 

Check out more of Karena’s art on her website (I particularly love the Woodstock turnip from Produce-d).  There is also a recipe by Karena herself in the book.  I haven’t managed to get the pecan pikelets one from her yet – maybe ring her up while Arts Canvass is on (Thursdays 9 to 11 am) and beg her and the rest of the pecan fiends on her street in Bangalow to share with the rest of us – apparently they get together and cook and eat at the drop of a hat, under a big pecan tree in Bangalow.  If your street or neighbourhood does something like that, us bellysisters would love to hear about it.  Meantime, here’s Karena’s lovely sweet potato recipe.

 

KARENA’S SWEET POTATO AND FETA BAKE

 

A good mix of white, purple and orange sweet potatoes

I large onion ( Spanish or purple)

6 cloves of unpeeled garlic

Fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs

Sea salt, ground pepper and Paprika

Feta Cheese

Parsley

 

Peel the potatoes if you wish or just scrub, then chop into bite sized pieces and place in a

large baking dish sprinkled with olive oil.

Add cloves of whole garlic and fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs.

Season with salt and pepper and ground paprika.

Toss together to coat pieces well.

Bake at 200c for about 30 mins or until pieces are slightly crispy.

5 mins before serving add cubed fetta cheese, return to the oven to soften.

To serve squeeze baked garlic over veges and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley

F A S T I N G … the lowdown on the slowdown

Talofa … Sister Rasela simmering on the hotplate today in the belly kitchen, bringing you more tantalising talk about food … or in this case – lack of it.

Each week we strive to bring you a show packed with tasty fillings and informative, inspiring stories surrounding food, and my inspiration this week came from an article article i read in the Sunday paper regarding a woman who had managed to starve herself to DEATH after embarking on a FAST.

How is this possible you and i both may wonder ? In the Western world, where foods of all descriptions and flavours are available to us on tap, where food is shared with friends and family and if you are lucky enough to live in a community such as Byron, you are able to get a free meal every day of the week through volunteer organizations and donations.

Added to all of that, food tastes so good. It’s delicious and tempting, nourishing and warming, fresh and alive (hopefully) and if it’s not then it’s not so bad that you would just stop eating … surely ?

Fashionably fast living ... did you forget to eat ??

Well, there are many of us that share this world of ours and it’s clearly obvious that we are not all the same. Our views and thoughts and beliefs all depend on how we were raised, with what values and ethics, what country we were born in, how our childhood panned out, any number of changeable issues can determine what we decide is best for us.

This particular lady, who was the victim of self starvation, decided that she wanted to go on a fast. There were no details of how heavy she was before she started the fast that killed her, no history into her eating habits (or lack of), no story that lead to the tragic outcome. It was a 5 line story about how she went on a fast and after a couple of weeks, after plees from her children, after her body must have been begging her mind to feed it … she died.

Many people might read this and jump to the uneducated conclusion that fasting is dangerous. The same as you may put on the tv (if you have one) and believe every single thing that they want you to. “It must be true, i heard it on the tele!!” Oh, is this the same tele that provides you with misleading advertisements and promises of extremely fast weight loss if you buy their product ? The same one that guarantees you youthful looking skin even if you are 85 and covered in wrinkles ? Oh and my favorite – sugar free, chemically sweetened, ‘healthy’ foods ? Same story … different angle.

A huge part of my love of community radio is to help share information and knowledge. To encourage listeners and readers of this show to think for yourselves. To question what you read and see and to make educated or at the very least informed decisions on what is best for YOU.

In the same way that i don’t believe (or even watch) anything i see on tv, i present the information on this show in a way that leaves it up to you to do whatever it is you will, with whatever information i share with you. Some things may apply to you, some to your neighbour, and some to the old lady that lives in the bush 30 km’s from you. You might be visiting town, you might have lived here all your life, you might even be about to leave, whatever your story is, that’s the most important thing to remember … that it is your story and it is the one that enables you to make the decisions you think are best for YOU.

... but is seeing believing ??

I wonder what this starving woman’s story is and i wonder if her story may have had a different outcome if she had have listened to belly today !!

Without further adieu … let’s get some info on FASTING and PURIFICATION.

Fasting and Purification have been described as very uplifting experiences that can enhance your mental well being and overall attitude IF it is done correctly.

A few different types of fasting can be considered depending on your specific need and desired outcome. You can eat nothing, a single food, or you can simply eliminate one or more foods in your diet.

Fasts can last anything from a day to several weeks or months. Most religious and healing traditions recommend fasting for therapeutic or spiritual advantages.

Fasting has been noted way back in history when the Winter supplies ran low for our ancestors and they were forced to go without, living sometimes on no more than water and fresh greens.

My, how life has changed ...

Contemporary fasts however, usually consist of abundant vegetable and fruit juices with combinations that create names such as ‘detox’, ‘liver cleanser’, ‘immune booster’ … unfortunately, many of the methods of juicing are not conducive to the purpose as much of the nutritional value can be lost in the process or afterwards. The best method of juicing is by using a cold press juicer which slowly squeezes the juice out of the vegetable or fruit, allowing it to retain the majority of it’s wholesome goodness. Fresh and organic produce is by far superior of course.

All of this said though, fasting just on juices can seriously impair both the digestive strength and metabolic rate of certain individuals and have been known to cool and weaken the body resulting in abnormal weight gain after the fast. This is not said to scare you but rather to remind you that we all need to be aware of what is best for us and that your fast, should you choose to do one, should be matched to your individual body type.

The word FAST indicates an important feature of the fast itself, It signifies the speeding up of the cleansing and renewal process by slowing down the normal digestive routine. The fast and the slow … nice balance !

Beware of fast fasts !! Anything that is slow and sustainable is far better for you and your beautiful body and in the long run teaches you better eating habits that you will hopefully be able to maintain throughout your luscious life.

I’ll give you a sneak peak into 5 different fasts i know about. You may have tried one or all of them or you may be considering starting one of them. I embarked on a fast about 7 years ago to help combat a sinus infection that was unbeatable with conventional medicines. It was meant to last 2 weeks but i was so euphoric and happy on it that i ended up staying on it for about 3 months. I was buzzing, beaming, high, clear headed, a little light headed, a bit skinny and not hungry at all. Quite scary actually.

I guess i got to the point where i felt starving, but at the same time i felt almost terrified to eat anything. I didn’t know where or how to start again. It was as though i had trained myself off of food. All i had been eating was selected steamed veges, raw salads, a bit of oat bran and lots of water along with some supplements/super foods.

The moment i realised i was starving was the same moment i realised that this is how an eating disorder could start. Through my fear of eating. Wanting to and knowing that i should but just not being able to. I had no cravings, no desire to eat, my mouth didn’t water for anything … these were all things i wasn’t used to !!

Inside me though i felt hollow, empty, airy, and i instinctively knew that i needed food. Something warm, wholesome, flavoursome, savoury …. so i headed to my favorite macrobiotic vegan cafe and ordered the vege lasagne.

When i remember back to this moment and describe it, it was like i tasted food for the first time in my life and realised what i had been missing out on. The second i put a mouthful of the layered, tasty, creamy, dreamy lasagne in my mouth, the very millisecond it touched my tongue, i felt my whole body absorb each ingredient in that decadent dish and pull it into my starving cells. I let out a low moan with each slow chew and the volume increased with each new spoonful. I smiled, i felt the colour come back to my cheeks, i felt that warm, wholeness in my spirit again, i felt grounded and complete.

I never looked back.

Let’s look forward instead and take a look at 5 popular fasts that may tickle your fancy –

  1. Raw fruit, vegetable or liquid fast
  2. Steamed vegetable fast
  3. Whole-Grain fast
  4. Micro-Algae fast
  5. Absolute fast

I’ll be back with the lowdown on all of these just as soon as i feed my pet aligators. If i’m not back soon, please let someone know ….

See ya later aligator !!