Gardening books for children

Here’s a round of some great books for encouraging your kids to get outside and enjoy gardening.

I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature – by Jennifer Ward

Kids in the Garden – Mary Moody

Oudoor Kids, A Practical Guide for Kids in the Garden by Jamie Durie

Kitchen Garden Cooking for Kids by Stephanie Alexander who began the Kitchen Garden Foundation

Book review: Madlands – by Anna Rose

A fascinating insight into climate change campaigning and a well-researched summary of the major arguments.

“I suspect that for my friends who aren’t active in climate change campaigning, their inaction is not because they don’t understand or don’t care. Instead it stems from doubts that there’s anything they can do to change the course the world is heading in.  It’s the ‘small cog is a big wheel’ syndrome. People focus on the wheel and how big it is without remembering that even a little cog, when connected to other cogs, has the ability to change the wheel’s direction.”

I particularly liked the beginning where Anna chronicled her experiences in campaigning.

“The whole experience taught me a fundamental truth that I carry with me to this day. I learned that in Australia change comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Change can happen even when you’re up against one of the world’s biggest mining companies. Change can happen in spite of a pro-developer state government. Change can come when people join together and don’t give up until they’ve made a difference.”

The youth of today are going to start asking their parents and older generations – why were they so greedy and selfish? Why did they squander and waste the earth’s precious resources so recklessly?

And when that tipping point happens they might get mad.

Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic – by Anna Rose
Australian Youth Climate Coalition
@annarose

Review: Anima Mundi documentary

I really liked the message of the Anima Mundi documentary, but the editing was very frustrating.

Anima Mundi is an innovative documentary about the planetary animal called the Earth and the human animal we deny, we deny at our own peril, yet a peril that is perfect in design. It covers permaculture, climate change and the soul of the world.

My favourite part is the facinating interviews with the following people:

• David Holmgren – co-founder of Permaculture
• John Seed – Deep Ecology
• Stephan Harding – Gaian Ecology
• Vandana Shiva – Human Rights
• Michael C Ruppert – Peak Oil (as seen in the movie Collapse)
• Michael Reynolds – Earthships (as seen in the movie Garbage Warrior)
• Noam Chomsky – Activism
• Dr Mark O’Meadhra – Integrative Medicine
• Dr Christine James – Psychology
• Dan Palmer and Adum Grub – Permablitz

I would have liked the interviews to go longer and take up the full screen. I would have liked a different music score and substantially less video editing effects. I would have also liked less black-and-white archive footage – as it really detracted from the so important message.

I also did not understand the concept of ”Anima Mundi” any better. I felt some areas were superficially skipped over and just as I was starting to get interested in a particular topic area, the film moved on to something else.

Bruno Tof’s sculpture park is inspirational. But what is with that snail?

The dvd is now available in Australia and New Zealand.

Anima Mundi

Brisbane Times Good Food Guide Queensland 2012

I was excited to get my hands on the very first edition of the Brisbane Times Queensland Good Food Guide.

With more than 450 reviews of eateries in Brisbane and covering the top of Queensland right down to Northern New South Wales.

Each review includes price range, opening hours and a score.

The 208 page full colour book is edited by Queensland food writer Natascha Mirosch. She has dispatched more than 25 reviewers all over Brisbane and up to Port Douglas and down to Coolangatta to seek the best places to dine in Queensland. Find out which dining establishments were dished up a coveted Good Food Guide Award chef hat.

The book is available in newsagents and book stores for $24.95.

An online version of the book is available, with access to all of the reviews. For a limited time the website only subscription for Brisbane Times Good Food Guide is only $4.50!!!

This is a RocketFuel sponsored post.

Why I’m not watching Masterchef this year

Surprise, surprise Masterchef’s ratings are down. Well, I think we all have gourmet food fatigue.

Here’s why I’m not watching Masterchef this year:

1. It takes up too many hours of my life.
2. The format of the show has become too formula driven.
3. The editing is incredibly misleading.
4. I hate the suspense of revealing the winners over an ad break.
5. The advertising is monotonous and banal.
6. Collies* advertisements are no longer fresh.
7. The show needs more likeable women.
8. The show promotes unhealthy eating habits.
9. It creates unrealistic expectations about plating up the perfect dish every night. Sometimes dinner is just an omelet. Who really eats food like that *every night*?
10. It’s not most people’s reality. I was disappointed to hear that Australian youth are missing meals so they can pay their rent. I wonder if the producers would consider having an episode in a soup kitchen?

Food is a source of nourishment and fuel for your good health and vitality.

I’m taking the pressure off ourselves.

I’m turning off the television, you can find me either in the garden or reading a good book.

Note: *Coles? Woolworths? They are both the same to me.

Book review: The Starter Kitchen

The Starter Kitchen by Callum Hann (2010 runner up of Masterchef Australia) is surprisingly a solid beginners cook book. It goes beyond most first cookbooks with over 60 inspiring recipes. It features typical classics like scrambled eggs, the perfect steak, roast chicken, spag bol, shepherd’s pie, chips, and vanilla panna cotta.

The book includes the basics of setting up a kitchen and developing key cooking skills. He provides useful and accessible information about purchasing fresh produce, buying and using the right equipment and shopping on a budget.

But then it takes it to a new level and advanced recipes, such as ‘chilli jam mussels steamed with beer’ and ‘mushroom and goat’s cheese risotto’, are things I would never have cooked in my university days.

I was tempted by the ‘Three Pigs Pizza’, ‘Pulled Pork Buns with no-mayo slaw’, ‘Cookies ‘n’ Cream Ice Cream’, ‘No-bake Chocolate Cake’, and ‘Peanut Butter Brownies’.

I like the A5 size and the fresh youthful design with full colour illustrations.

Recommended for a cook in their twenties.

The Starter Kitchen
- by Callum Hann
@callumskitchen
@murdochbooks

Documenary review: Growing Change

This commodification of food by industrial agriculture has created a chasm between the grower and the  consumer. But now there’s a change. People want to close that gap in.
- Costa Georgiadis

How will the world feed itself in the future?

Is it possible to grow a fair and sustainable food system?

This film shows an experiment in how to create that change with promising solutions.

In Venezuela, from fishing villages to cocoa plantations to urban gardens, a growing social movement is showing what’s possible when communities, not corporations, start to take control of food.

Sydney filmmaker Simon Cunich went on a 12-month journey from community gardens in Sydney to farming co-operatives in Venezuela.

This documentary has a wonderful positive message. It stands there right next to the now classic Power of Community.

Highly recommended.

Growing Change

Documentary review: Forks over Knives

The “Forks over knives” dvd has just been released overseas, and I was fortunate to receive my copy on pre-order.

The documentary examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.

The main storyline traces the personal journeys of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a nutritional scientist from Cornell University, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a former top surgeon at the world renowned Cleveland Clinic. Inspired by remarkable discoveries in their young careers, these men conducted several groundbreaking studies. Their separate research led them to the same startling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented—and in many cases reversed—by  adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet.

You may have heard of Dr Campbell from his book ‘The China Study‘.

The cameras also follow some of their patients who have chronic conditions from heart disease to diabetes, and are taught by their doctors to adopt a whole foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments.

Keep your eye out for this one, or over your copy over at amazon Forks over Knives.

SBS’s Gourmet Farmer returns

I’m a big fan of personal challenges, but I wonder if Matthew Evans has bitten off more than he can chew?

Matthew, with his partner Sadie and son Hedley, are now living on a small farm in Tasmania. He tries his hand at farming and experimenting with making artisanal produce. Farming for three – how hard can it be?

I can’t believe he named his pigs cassoulet and prosciutto!

Matthew starts up-scaling his farm by expanding from two pigs to 22. He sets about coming up with ways of preserving and selling the extra pork produce from more than just his market stall.  An invitation to Slow Food’s Salon in Turin affords him the opportunity to travel abroad to Italy and France.  There he learns skilled ways of preserving meat which could help him balance his ‘drought or glut’ issues.

With his good friends Nick and Ross, a new business idea is born – A Common Ground.  The aim of his new business is to travel to remote locations around Tasmania to set up a long table, and cook multiple course menus from produce sourced solely from the area.  Whether or not locals and mainlanders will travel the miles and pay the price for a genuine locavore experience is yet to be seen.

Look out for the memorable Kayak trip down the Picton River with Nick and Ross.

I’d give the farming a miss, but I’d love to make a documentary on food.

The second series of Gourmet Farmer commences Thursday 25 August at 7.30pm on SBS ONE.

Review: Gluten free rice based breads

There are three gluten free breads available in Brisbane that do not contain corn or maize, that I can recommend:

SOL Gluten Free Rice & Pumpkin Loaf (Sliced) – by Sol Bread

Sol Bread’s rice and pumpkin is good, but it seems to be always dry. It’s best for toasting and doesn’t keep so well. You sometimes get the odd pumpkin skin or seed. The sliced version is so much easier to use. It is available from the markets, many health food shops and their Sol Bakeries. It is popular with cafes that sell gluten-free bread.

It contains: Filtered Water, Organic Rice Flour, Arrowroot, Pumpkin, Buckwheat, Sunflower Oil, Sea Salt, Cultured Rice, Xanthan Gum.

Rice Chia bread – by Dovedale Bread

Dovedale’s Bread is my next favourite. I love the addition of the chia seeds, which actually are pretty tasteless so you don’t even notice them. Best toasted again. The fruit and rice chia bread is also great. It is available from Mrs Flanneries.

It contains: Certified Organic Rice Flour (White and Brown) (50%), Filtered Water, Chia (12%), Certified Organic Rice Starch, Vegetable Gum (412), Sea Salt.

Gluten free rice bread - by Britt’s Organic Bakery

This is my current favourite gluten free bread. It is best toasted twice and tastes exactly like normal bread. It is available from Mrs Flanneries.

It contains: White rice flour, rice sourdough starter, potato starch,tapioca starch, rice bran, organic Non-hydrogenated palm fruit oil, rice malt, unrefined sea salt, guar gum, filtered water.

We have found it best to buy two loaves at a time, and place one in the freezer for the second week. Gluten free bread is also best kept in the refrigerator.