Homegrown - whole foods, Theatre of Ideas at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and sausage making.

I've become really conscious about what I eat. I haven't become a diet fad bore, cutting out total food groups, but I am keen to cook and eat whole foods where I can. I love the simplicity of fresh produce - it's so tasty and I really do feel better for eating it. I also really love knowing where my food comes from. I get excited talking about food, especially when I find out people have grown their own. One of the managers at my day job brought in the blue chicken eggs, below. They were laid by Lavender Araucana chickens. The camera didn't pick up the true colour of the eggs, but imagine a pale Tiffany blue.




Earlier in March I was a guest at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival's Theatre of Ideas. Hosted by chef-journalist Jill Dupleix, the Theatre of Ideas featured three farmer-chefs talking about their passion for sustainable food, small scale production, mindful eating and powering the body and brain with wholefoods. In summary, they discussed the journey from earth to table, highlighting the change we need to make to our producing, sourcing and eating habits.

Canadian Michael Stadtlander talked at length about his farm, restaurant and bakery (read a great article about him here). Michael owns and operates Eigensinn Farm and Hasai Bakery. The Theatre of Ideas showcased Michael's restaurant sculpture projects. As well as raising and growing the produce on his farm, he creates thematic sculptural gardens and kitchen areas for dining and food preparation. He and his team created hand potted plates, a treehouse and a giant wine dispenser made of recycled wine bottles. His ideas are lavish, a little outlandish, but very interesting. He believes heaven is on earth and demonstrates this through his food practices.

Next up was Matthew Evans, former food critic turned Gourmet Farmer, based in Tasmania. He hopes there is a shift in conscience in how we source food, and encourages the average person to "have a crack" at growing their own produce. He moved from Sydney to Tasmania, on a 12 hectare farm with a garden, pigs, a house cow and sheep. He now also has Fat Pig Farm - an industrial farm with 40 pigs, 16 cows and 12 sheep, plus a mobile food caravan which he takes to food events. He believes farming is an art, and said it is important to showcase Indigenous people, the older generation and real farmers on TV because they understand the complexities of the earth and food producing. It was interesting to hear him speak about his passion for fresh produce and flavours - he said "if you can source good produce, cooking is really easy."

Both Michael and Matthew spoke about death being the hardest thing about farming. "I had no idea how many animals die for us to have commercially grown food", Matthew said. "Death is grim. It makes me feel like a failure when baby animals die", he said, noting that he is against hunting as a blood sport. Jill Dupleix assured him that being sad about death on a farm is healthy for a mindful farmer to feel.

Swedish Chef Magnus Nilson spoke last - he spoke about the unsustainability of meat production. I had to leave part way through his talk for the Rickshaw Run.

I met Matthew over a glass of champagne in the media room - I spoke to him briefly about my love for fresh produce and learning about the food journey.

A few bloggers were in attendance, including Bern Morley, Heidi Apples and Gourmet Girlfriend (you have to check out her bread challenge on her blog and Instagram (follow the hashtag #ggbreadrevolution - it warms my heart that she's encouraging people to make their own bread!).

I came away from Theatre of Ideas feeling inspired to eat fresher, more mindfully and to go to more food lectures.

I thank the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for sending me along to this event.

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Over the past two weeks I've been making smoothies for breakfast - green (or orange) and fruit/dairy ones. Some of the great combinations have been spinach, pineapple, celery, grapes, lemon juice and mint, and an awesome pumpkin pie smoothie, inspired by this recipe. I cooked some pumpkin and a carrot in the microwave, chilled it overnight, and added cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, maple syrup, a couple of dates, nut butter, chia seeds, a frozen banana and rice milk. It was so delicious!

This long weekend I went home to my parents' house in country NSW. It was blissfully relaxing - spent reading (Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller - engrossing, heartbreaking and beautifully written), napping and cooking and eating. We went to the farmer's market - smells of bacon and egg rolls and hot coffee and children's laughter filled the air, and we bumped into old friends. I bought some brioche (beautiful toasted with butter and eaten for breakfast with a berry and peach smoothie) and boutique cordial made my former paediatrician's wife, and a hand-potted bowl from the adjacent art gallery.

In the afternoon, my parents and I made sausages. So much fun! Mum and Dad recently went to a sausage making class, and although they had previously made sausages in their old Breville mixer, they learnt some tricks of the trade such as ensuring the air pressure is ok and professionally twisting and looping the sausages. Dad's really big on buying things on eBay, and he bought a sausage making machine last week. It's a simple contraption - a heavy metal body, barrel to hold the mince, a handle to feed the barrel across the body, and a number of nozzles for different sized sausages. (Photos courtesy of my Dad.)

Mum prepared the mince the night before to maximise flavour - fresh local pork amd suet - minced up in the food processor, roasted herbs and spices - soaked in wine. The sausage skins are natural, and there are no preservatives.

When I was young, I didn't appreciate the process of making (not cooking) food. My parents bottled homegrown fruit, grew rows and rows of vegetables, collected eggs from the chicken coop, made sausages, and raised chickens and sheep for meat. I just thought we should buy food ready to eat from the supermarket, as often the hard work made my parents swear, and tending to the garden and animals in the dry heat of summer was arduous for them. But now I see the pleasure in the homegrown. Making our own food tastes better. The ingredients are known and often grown with care. And it brings us together. It's fun! I enjoyed making sausages as a family - we laughed, taught each other and were proud of our efforts.

I had fun feeding the sausage out of the nozzle, ensuring it was a consistent thickness.

My completed sausage was around 1.5 metres, almost as tall as me! Mum showed me how to twist the sausages in alternate directions so they'll hold when cut.

And last night I had some of the sausages for dinner, with roast vegetables and steamed greens, followed by a tart filled with pears in vanilla, maple and ginger sauce. All made fresh from scratch - thanks to Mum for the pastry, and to Camille's sister Rachael for the herbs.

Plated up! Really tasty.

Honey, I baked! The tart had sweetness and zing, and I served a piece of it with a dollop of Greek yoghurt.

For me, cooking is a way of life. I feel better for knowing what's in my food. I ate a burger from McDonalds on the bus trip back to Melbourne. It tasted strange - artificial - and I regretted it. Eating whole foods feels so much better.

The Footscray Rickshaw Run at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

Yesterday evening, thanks to the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, I got to experience the Rickshaw Run, run (literally - the rickshaws were powered by human runners) by the Footscray Traders Association. I love Vietnamese food, and despite already being on a tour of Footscray last year, I wanted to try a different one, on wheels this time.

First stop was at D&K Seafoods where we were given three oysters each. I had six, because some people in our group were oyster averse. They were big and juicy.

And then we were off, two per rickshaw, tearing through the streets of Footscray. Lots of fun. I think the onlookers had as much fun as we did. I shared a rickshaw with a lovely woman called Leah.

Next stop was Little Saigon Market where we could look around and try some fruit. I had been here before on the Vietnam on a Plate tour last year. I stuck close to the fruit trolley, sampling mango, longan and cha chas, and peaches and nectarines with chilli salt. So sweet, so yummy!

We learnt to make pork and prawn rice paper rolls at Sen on our third stop.

Here's my first attempt - chubby and bursting at the seams. Sums up my tummy at the food and wine festival really!

There was a surprise at the fourth stop! A drumming band - really fantastic and looked as though they were drumming and doing martial arts at the same time, some barbecued beef wrapped in vine leaves (so spicy and tender), and a massage! I'd never had a massage until this one - and while it felt funny at first, I felt very good afterwards.

This was at our fifth stop - Hanoi pork from Sapa Hill. A watery, acidic sauce was poured over the pork to make it tender, and the pork was then served over noodles, Vietnamese mint and basil. Our waiter said this was his favourite dish, he eats it every day when he returns to Vietnam. It was good! I ate a piece of green chilli and it had so much heat in it though!

Our sixth stop was at Dong Que - we had spring rolls which we wrapped in lettuce and herbs. They were crunchy and juicy inside. Yum!

We had a race down the side street on the way back to our meeting place. Being on a rickshaw on Footscray is much more relaxing than the pedicab of New York. Though at first it felt jerky, it was fun to whizz through the streets, especially with the cool breeze that had finally come.

And here I am at our final stop before we said our goodbyes. What a fun evening! We are so lucky to experience a wealth of different cultures here in Melbourne.

I thank the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for sending me along to this event.




 

Circa's One Night on Earth at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

On Thursday night I was a guest at Circa's One Night on Earth - an event in the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Circa is at the Prince of Wales in St Kilda - it was a balmy night which made the view of the bay even more beautiful. Three prestigious chefs came together to create the menu - Paul Wilson (Melbourne Pub Group), Ross Lusted (The Bridge Room) and Jake Nicolson (Circa) worked with sommelier Sally Humble for One Night on Earth.

Sally was on the microphone throughout the night - she was fabulous - she has a great gift for working with people and wine. Towards the end of the night, the three chefs came out to talk to the room about the food - I loved their passion. As they were leaving, I tapped Jake on the arm, telling him I work with his cousin's wife. Jake and I got chatting about the night, exchanged twitter handles, and Paul joined the conversation. It was interesting to hear how the food supply is affected by the climate - the fish Paul sources has been limited by both the recent fires and floods. Our conversation made me realise just how precious our produce is, and that our ecosystem is so precarious. It certainly reinforces the need to source whatever produce is locally available at the time, and puts the cost of fine dining into perspective. I enjoy learning about the food sourcing and cooking processes as much as I enjoy eating, and I am so thankful to Paul, Jake and Sally for taking the time to talk to me.

It was a night of indulgence - with seven courses - eight if you count the seaweed lavosh. There was beautiful food - such fresh produce, and every course was matched with imported organic wine. The premise of the night was to celebrate the earth - 100 people enjoying natural ingredients.

The Circa staff made me feel very welcome when I arrived. I was placed on the media table with two real journalists, which makers me feel equally important and amateur at the same time. It's a weird feeling of my writing not quite being mainstream media, and the whole perceptions of bloggers at the moment (my perception included).

The journalists were good company - we talked about journalism - the old and the new guard, paywalls, my uni lecturers, and how the great voices can get lost in the Internet noise. I also learnt a little about wine - one of the journalists, Jeni Port, specialises in wine journalism. I learnt to swirl the glass to release the aroma and flavour, and also that wine and food matching is designed to compliment or contrast a dish.


I was really pleased that our table was directly under a downlight, so it made it easier to take photos. Though my friends viewing my social media accounts were getting major food envy, with the beautiful Naomi PT playfully telling me to stop it on a number of occasions - deciding that she couldn't be my friend anymore after I posted the dessert photos. If it was any consolation to those suffering from food envy, I felt like a massive sloth after the eight courses, and lay heavily on my bed for some time.

So before my table company arrived, I was serve some seaweed lavosh with eggplant dip. The lavosh was deliciously kelpy - a little salty, a little fishy. It worked well with the rich eggplant dip. I liked that because the lavosh was vegetable based, rather than grain based, it didn't fill me up too much.

The first course was apple roasted bonito, heirloom vegetable and oyster tarama. The vegetables were lightly pickled, sweet and tangy. Bonito tasted like smoked trout - you can see it at the bottom of the picture. The oyster tarama was a fancy word for roe - and this is where taramasalata dip comes from. I loved the addition of the purple flower petal on the plate - such a pretty salad.

Next up was seafood - a mix sourced from Australian and New Zealand. Scallops, mussels, scampi, prawns and abalone. It was served on creamed corn, and topped with what I can only assume was sea cucumber - it had that lightly chewy texture. The scampi was my favourite - it came out of its shell whole, and was so sweet. The corn reminded me of delicious cornbread I had in America.

Here is a French wine that I drank before the duck course. It was Chateau Thivin ''Griottes de'en Brulhie", Cote de Brouilly, 2010. It was light and had fruity notes. I enjoyed it.

The duck course was my favourite savoury dish. Beautiful presentation and equally as beautiful tasting. On the plate, from left to right is red onion stuffed with walnuts and brioche, ash grilled Milawa duck, pressed fig, mini plums and blood plum vinegar. It was an amazing mix of tart and sweet and rich fatty tastes. The stuffed onion was really special - I want to make it for myself. The duck - rich, fatty and tender - was barbecued in aromatic wood chips - the chefs talked about the Robarta grill where they use different wood chips and infused oils to give food different smoky flavours. The translucent fig was delicate, and contrasted the tart plums. It was wonderful.

Our fourth course was wood roasted wagyu beef (thoroughbred from Japan), with porcini and farro risotto. The wagyu was meltingly tender - and the elements of farrow and lightly smoked pine mushrooms, combined with the sauce made it very casserole-like. It was rich and earthy, unctuous and I think was the meal that captured the essence of the Earth theme. The farro made a good alternative to aborio rice - it swelled into fat grains, and soaked up the flavour of the mushrooms. So good!

I was a bit full by then, but I was intrigued by the ingredients in this first dessert course. I powered on, for it was dairy heaven for me (for someone who doesn't drink milk, I certainly support the dairy industry well!). This one was a Heidi gruyere custard with pomegranate molasses, hazelnuts and nashi. The gruyere custard was rich and tangy, like yoghurt - cut by sweet nashi and the sherry-like wine served with this course. The texture of it was like heavy cream. I was interested to hear chef Paul Wilson speak about how they infused cream with gruyere cheese - so it got a hint of the cheese taste. After this course, I was approaching a food coma.

Our waiter told us the first dessert was great, but the next dessert was "OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!", gesturing his arms excitedly. He was right.

It was whole goats cheese wrapped in a brandy snap, scattered with native and wild berries, and dotted with salted caramel and berry sauce. It was beautiful, delicate and flavoursome - I liked the sourness of the goats cheese - it was almost like icecream, firm and frozen - with the berries (raspberries were stuffed with goats cheese). I tasted soft cardamom (amazing) and wild strawberries, which were like Willy Wonka lollies - superpowered strawberries!

If the taste wasn't amazing enough, I was besotted with the presentation - including the gold leaf berries. Gold leaf you guys!

The golden berries weren't the end of the meal - we were presented with petit fours. I couldn't capture the colours properly, no matter which instagram filter I used. From the back: white and milk chocolate choc tops filled with a mild mint ganache (held upright in a cup of lentils), sparkly biscuits with a peanut topping, and neopolitan marshmallow cakes - they look like little breasts actually. The marshmallows were my favourite. I had two.

Circa's One Night on Earth was really special. I came away from it feeling incredibly full, but I took pleasure in experiencing fine dining prepared by some passionate chefs, beautiful wine that I wouldn't ordinarily drink, and some new company. As my new chef friend Jake Nicolson tweeted to me, "we are very fortunate to have all these beautiful things at our doorstep."

I thank the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for sending me along to this event.