Bright Wings

Little Books triumph

Modern recipe books irritate me: too large, too heavy and too few recipes, the close-typed recipe books of yesteryear replaced by monuments to food styling and photographers.

By chance I stumbled on The Little Bookroom, a New York publisher of quality little books. My first purchases arrived this morning.

Produced by the American Academy in Rome Sustainable Food Project, Zuppe is a delight -- full of recipes for interesting soups made from basic local ingredients and only 6" x 7-1/4" (sorry, I don't know what the measurement is in metric.)

The dustjacket even has "food spots" and a coffee cup ring on the back to add to the homely appearance.

 

The Little Bookroom also produces travel guides: tiny hardback volumes that can be slipped into a suitcase.  I'm looking forward to enjoying Literary Paris this evening - after trying one of the soup recipes from Zuppe.

For those interested in web design the Little Bookroom's website reflects the Bookroom's ethos of minimalism. Lovely.

Divine lunch at DeVine

DeVine Cafe at Clareville, near Carterton, is a superb venue for live music, with high ceilings and wooden floors, and plenty of space for the sound to develop.

We enjoyed lunch there yesterday and listening to The Cool Cats playing jazz. 

Many live bands seem to feel the need to make themselves heard several miles away, with the result that patrons end up with laryngitis from having to shout to carry on a conversation with their friends. 

The Cool Cats got the volume just right. Their music, mainly from the 40s and 50s, was most engaging and seemed to appeal to all ages. 

DeVine is very family-friendly and a great place for Sunday lunch. There were several parties with everyone from grandparents to new babies, all enjoying the food and music. DeVine has plenty of space for small children who don't like sitting still, as well as a dedicated play area.

They have live music on the first Sunday of every month, from 12 - 3 pm.

Easy Christmas recipes

 

If you are fast running out of time to make a Christmas cake I recommend Annabelle White's Super Simple Christmas Cake.

No time-consuming creaming of butter and sugar, you simply combine butter, sugar, brandy and fruit in a large saucepan, cool, then add flour and eggs. Really easy.  In recent years I've given up my tried-and-true recipes in favour of this. It tastes immediately like a cake that's been properly "aged."

If you want to make stand-out mince pies, Julie le Clerc has a wonderful Chocolate, Fig and Ginger Mince recipe.

Photo: Christian Ferrari, Genova, Italy

Entice cafe entices

My favourite Masterton cafe -  Entice - has a nice review in today's Herald.

We came here because we were on holiday and in need of sustenance after visiting the local swimming pool.

Parking was in the supermarket carpark just across the road. There's also plenty of parking on the street.

We walked in and immediately thought we can see why this place is busy - it's located in the museum and arts centre, and across the road from the very pretty QEII Park.

The menu is fairly standard but the cabinet food did indeed entice. We ordered a ham, cheese and tomato croissant, and a spinach, pinenut and feta filo parcel. Both were delicious.

The coffee was great. So was the hot chocolate, though the tall glass mug with a handle that it came in was a bit over-the-top.

The service was excellent. The long line of people waiting to place orders quickly disappeared thanks to the very efficient and friendly staff.

Our food arrived about 10 minutes after we sat down.

We recommend if you come here you sit outside and relax looking over the road to the park. Then wander over for a pedal-boat ride on the lake.

Super-sized broiler chickens out of touch with market

Chickens haven't escaped the food industry's obsession with super-sizing everything.

Last week Coundown specialled No. 13 chickens (1.25kgs) at $4.99. This week it's New World's turn to do the same. 

Both supermarkets have been cleaned out, such was the consumer demand for smaller, inexpensive frozen chickens.

Most broiler chickens being offered in supermarkets today are huge.

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discovered when growing broiler chickens in the same way as the commercial rearers, the obsession with growing extra-large chickens in a very short time leads to birds that are unable to support their own weight.

Why are the chicken suppliers growing these huge birds? Many of them are getting close to the size of a small turkey.

The large chickens take forever to cook and, if not cooked sufficiently, can harbour bacteria which lead to nasty gastro-intestinal illness.

If you're cooking roast chicken for a large family or crowd, two small chickens give you a better selection of legs and wings which are the bits children love.

Packets of chicken legs, breasts, etc, reflect the same super-sizing.

We simply don't need that much protein.

Film exposes dark side of American food industry

Food, Inc. exposes America's industrialized food system and its effect on our environment, health, economy and workers' rights.

The Wairarapa Farmers' Market is holding a premiere of this excellent movie on Wednesday, 14 October, at 8.30 pm.

If you care about the environment, about what you eat, the epidemic of junk food, diabetes and obesity, factory farming, the global food crisis and genetic engineering, you must see this film.

Further background material on the on the issues covered in the film

Earlier post on Wairarapa Farmers' Market.

Bee colony collapse disorder poses worldwide threat to food production

Widespread bee deaths are the focus of attention at Apimonda, the World Apiculture Congress, according to a report on Seed Daily

Across parts of North America and swathes of Europe, but also now in patches of Asia, bee hives have been struck by a mysterious ailment dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

At normal times, bee communities naturally lose around five percent of their numbers. But in CCD, a third, a half -- sometimes even 90 percent -- of the insects can be wiped out. Eerily, no bodies are typically found near the hive.

The phenomenon is alarming for beekeepers, many of them small-scale operators or hobbyists, who lack the clout and subsidy support that other agricultural sectors enjoy.

But food experts and environmental scientists are also worried. The Western honey bee is a vital link in the food chain, fertilising nearly 100 kinds of crops.

Around a third of the food on our plates gets there thanks to Apis mellifera. By some estimates, this unseen, unsung work is worth more than 200 billion dollars a year, often through hives that are trucked to monoculture farms to do pollinating magic at specific times of the year.

Wild bees, bats and other pollinators are simply not numerous enough to do the trick. So when honey bees and beekeeping are devastated, the impact for large-scale agricultural production is clear.

"In China, fruit farmers in Sichuan are having to hand-pollinate their orchards," says Henri Clement, president of the National Union of French Beekeepers.

Despite intense investigation, the cause of CCD remains unclear. Mooted culprits include a blood-sucking mite called varroa; a single-celled fungal parasite called Nosema cerenae that causes bee dystentery and pesticides used in fields that are pollinated by bees.

Fingers in Europe have also pointed at an intruder, the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, which lurks near hives and captures the poor honey bee in flight and devours it.

Other proferred explanations include poor nutrition -- that mega farms, stripped of hedgerows and wild flowers, and spreading suburbs, with their concrete, roads and lawns, are depriving bees of a decent diet.

Despite the many suspects, there has been no conviction, or at least none that singly explains why bee colonies should be collapsing in so many parts of the world at the same time. Climate change may also be an aggravating factor, say some experts.

One possibility is that CCD is a complex web of factors. Last month, entomologists at the University of Illinois reported that bees in CCD-ravaged hives had high levels of damaged ribosomes -- a key protein-making machine within cells. Their ribosomes appear to have been hijacked by so-called picornia-like viruses, which seize control of cellular machinary to make it crank out only viral components. Picorna-like viruses are carried by the varroa mite, which has spread by being accidentally introduced through commercial transactions of bees. "If your ribosome is compromised, then you can't respond to pesticides, you can't respond to fungal infections or bacteria or inadequate nutrition because the ribosome is central to the survival organism," said researcher May Berenbaum.

Meanwhile, researchers at Britain's University of Leeds have begun a three-year study to see if the bees' decline could have an earthier cause -- a lack of variety in the sex life of queen bees. They are investigating whether a decreasing number of potential mates means colonies are becoming less genetically diverse and more prone to disease.

Aunt Daisy on cornflour blancmange

Aunty Daisy dispenses potted wisdom and a recipe for cornflour blancmange

Consumer supermarket price survey disappointing

As a keen observer of supermarket prices and marketing techniques, I was interested in the results of Consumer NZ's supermarket pricing survey.

I assumed that Consumer would base its survey around items that a sensible family would purchase to put together inexpensive, nutritrious meals. I was wrong. The survey was based around the top 10 selling supermarket items.

• bread (the leader in value and in the number of packs sold)
• milk
• biscuits
• fizzy drink
• snacks
• cheese
• cat food
• butter

I would argue that the items I have shown in red are products that should be regarded as treats, rather than part of a staple family diet. Having a cat is discretionary and should not be included in a pricing study either.

How about some basic items which can be used as the foundation of a meal or school lunches, such as

• pasta, macaroni, etc
• inexpensive pasta sauce
• baked beans
• tinned salmon (a 400g tin easily feeds four for about $2.50)
• eggs

Both of the major supermarket chains (Foodstuffs: Pak'n Save, New World); Progressive Enterprises: Countdown, Woolworths, Foodtown) offer house brands.  Foodstuffs supermarkets have "Budget" brand and Progressive Enterprises "Home Brand" products which are considerably cheaper and have not necessarily been included in this survey as survey shoppers were instructed to buy a particular brand.

I always study the weekly supermarket catalogues carefully.  There is a heavy focus on processed food, soft drink, confectionary, wine and beer in these catalogues because this is where the supermarkets are making their money. 

This week's catalogues feature heavily discounted soft drink. I understand soft drink is the number one selling supermarket product and dietitians tell me they often have to try and wean people off drinking three 2 litre bottles a day!

Note: To view the full Consumer report you'll need to subscribe.

Really fresh eggs

One of the delights of living in a rural community is being able to buy produce that hasn't died of exhaustion from being carted hundreds of kilometres across New Zealand.

I was reminded of this when I went to collect some eggs from the local free range poultry farm this morning. The eggs were so fresh they were still warm.

If you like fresh food, the weekly Wairarapa Farmers' Market is on tomorrow at the Solway Showgrounds, Masterton. They have a wonderful range of seasonal produce, cheeses, breads, fish freshly caught on the Wairarapa coast, superb fish cakes and lots more.

Easy fruit loaf recipe

Barm Brack
This is an excellent loaf recipe for using up odds and ends of dried fruit you have in the cupboard and is very quick and simple to make.

500 gms mixed dried fruit (dates, currants, raisins, sultanas, cake fruit mix)
1 cup tea (put teabag in cup and add boiling water)
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups self-raising flour
1 egg

Soak fruit with sugar in the tea, ideally overnight, but for at least a couple of hours.

Add flour and well-beaten egg to fruit mixture and place in well-greased loaf tin. Bake at 150⁰C for two hours. Serve in slices, buttered if desired.

Thai-style Pumpkin Soup

A flavoursome soup that is very good on its own as a light meal with some bread or toast. For a more substantial meal shred some cooked chicken into it or add some diced raw fish or some frozen seafood mix.

If you're making soup you might as well make a decent quantity and freeze it in one-cup size containers ready for reheating quickly when the thought of making a meal leaves you feeling completely exhausted.

Quantities are very flexible. It needs pumpkin, onions and celery, but you can also use odds and ends like parsnip, swede, etc, as well.

Ingredients
1 large Whangaparoa Crown-style grey pumpkin, cut into cubes
4 x 400 gm tins tomatoes or half a 2.5 kg tin tomatoes (from Moore Wilson)
4-6 onions, peeled and chopped
3-4 tablespoons canola or olive oil
1-2 tablespoons Thai green curry paste
4-6 celery stalks/tops, roughly chopped
4-6 carrots, chopped/diced
2-3 kumara (optional), chopped into cubes
1 tin coconut milk

Method
Heat 3-4 tablespoons of canola or olive oil in a large cauldron-size saucepan (stockpot size). Cook onions, celery and carrots, stirring frequently, until the onion is soft. Add the curry paste and stir for about a minute.

Add either the four tins of tomatoes or half a 2.5 kg tin and stir to combine. Turn heat up and add pumpkin, kumara and any other root vegetables. When it reaches the boil, turn down heat and allow it to simmer until the vegetables are reasonably tender. Note – you don't need to simmer this for hours – this should take 20-25 minutes, depending on the quantity.

Once vegetables are tender, remove from heat and use a stick blender to puree (or put through a food processor in stages). Add coconut cream and then add boiling water till the soup reaches the desired consistency.

Serves 15-20

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Notes: If you are planning to freeze this, divide the soup up into smaller containers - such as smaller saucepans and ceramic bowls, otherwise it will take hours to cool down sufficiently to freeze.

Moore Wilson have an excellent range of inexpensive commercial plastic containers if you want to freeze this in one-cup portions.

Folic acid

Every news report about the folic acid debate is accompanied by footage of thousands of loaves of white bread on their way through the factory.

One of the better health initatives of the Churchill government during the Second World War was to ban flour refining. Everyone had to eat wholemeal bread/cakes, etc.

While the beleaguered British were doggedly chomping through wholesome wholemeal products, they were also getting their share of folate, and other nutritional goodies.

Up and down the country nutritional experts decry white bread as "empty calories."  How about a long-term programme to encourage people to eat wholemeal bread?

Over 20 years the culture of smoking has changed from being acceptable everywhere, to the miserable few huddled in the cold at outside tables.  Changing eating habits will probably take as long.

For a start, how about suggesting to pregnant women that they try Vogel's instead of sliced white?

Children need to learn to cook

Many New Zealand children don't know how to boil an egg or cook a potato, the result of working parents too busy to teach them basic skills and the closure of school cooking kitchens in the 1990s.

There's some examples of excellent Wellington initiatives to get children interested in cooking in this Stuff article. 

Potatoes New Zealand are also launching a Calling all Grandparents campaign to encourage grandparents to teach their children to cook. As Alison Holst points out, a baked potato is a good place to start.

Snail farming

Most New Zealanders view snails as a gardener's nightmare because of their propensity for munching up favoured ornamental and edible plants.

Hawkes Bay farmers Raewynne and Paul Achten have turned these garden pests into an epicurean delicacy and supply restaurants and internet customers during the season starting in October (snails hibernate over the winter months.)

Read the full story on Stuff, and visit the Silver Snail Trail website here.  

Meat preservatives and fertiliser use linked to Alzheimers

Preservatives added to meat and processed food may be contributing to a huge increase in diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Type II diabetes, according to research released today by the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

A report in Perth Now quotes scientists as saying that

sodium nitrite, which is added to meat and fish to destroy toxins, reacts with proteins in the meat, damaging human DNA cells similar to aging.

The problem is compounded by an increase in human exposure to nitrogen-containing fertilisers from soil run-off and water contamination.

Study author and professor of pathology and lab medicine at Rhode Island Hospital in the US, Suzanne de la Monte,

found that a massive rise in fertiliser and processed food sales coincided with an increased prevalence of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and type 2 diabetes in the US.

``In essence, we have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased nitrosamine production. Nitrites and nitrates belong to a class of chemical compounds that have been found to be harmful to humans and animals,'' Ms De la Monte says.

``The relatively short time interval for such dramatic increases in death rates associated with these diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and type 2 diabetes) is more consistent with exposure-related causes rather than genetic changes.''

If this study is correct we can look forward to ever-increasing numbers of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's sufferers. Both these diseases create great suffering, both for patients and their families, and create a huge burden on the health system.

Fresh ideas for lemons

Kate Fraser, in The Press has some lovely, simple ideas for using lemons, readily available in the garden for most of us at this time of the year.

She includes some interesting stuff about the history of the lemon as well.

Small portions, please

Portion size is credited as one of the reasons we are joining much of the western world in becoming a nation of fat people.

Go to any cafe and you will be greeted with texan-size muffins (often made with commercial cake-mix, rather than proper muffin mixture) and you munch your way through almost a cup of muffin mixture.

There's endless research that demonstrates we are programmed to avoid famine by eating everything in front of us. Thus, we mindlessly eat large muffins when a small one would have met our needs for a calorie fix.  Watch the hordes of office staff descending on cafes at morning tea time for their coffee and texan muffin. Then they're not hungry at lunchtime and are starving mid-afternoon, when they have a Mars bar from the vending machine.

For cafes, there might well be a financial benefit to serving mini muffins. Customers might choose a couple of small items - at a higher unit cost.

Reducing muffin size probably isn't going to save the world, particularly with the unending deluge of fast foods and sugar-intensive soft drinks.  But it's a start.

Designer cauliflower

Purple-hearted cauliflower on display at Pinehaven Orchards, Greytown.

Milk too dear

There is much debate about milk being more expensive than soft drinks and the implications for health and welfare.

Richard Long reminds us about the school milk scheme, set up to ensure even the most deprived children had a nourishing drink at morning break.

My recall isn't one of enjoying a nourishing drink, rather more enduring revolting, warm, sometimes curdled milk. Opting out wasn't an option. The shed in which the crates of half-pint bottles was stored was always optimally sited to take full advantage of the morning sunshine, to ensure the milk was at least tepid by morning tea time.

When we grew up there were two drinks available: water or milk. Soft drinks were reserved for special treats, such as birthday parties.  Milk (in bottles) was supplied by town milk supplying dairy farmers, cost roughly 5 cents a bottle, and was delivered by the milkman.

Now we have the situation of mothers eschewing milk for their children in favour of cheaper soft drinks.  This reflects ignorance of the pernicious effects of wholesale consumption of softdrinks and resultant addiction to sugar, and is unfortunate testimony to the outstanding marketing of such products, particularly in supermarkets.

Richard Long suggests that food stamps might be the answer to getting parents to buy nourishing food, instead of sending the kids to school with a fizzy drink and chippies.  I'm not too sure about that.

Couldn't we start by encouraging kids to drink plain old water?  And supporting and extending breakfast at school schemes to ensure kids at least start the day with an adequate level of nutrition.

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Frank Newman of Living off the smell of an oily rag has researched the price of milk and finds wide variation in milk price across the country. The Milk Report makes interesting reading.