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Food News from January 2010
Growing our own
For many of us, 2009 was the year we got into planting our own food. We don’t have any numbers for Australia, but we know that in America — thanks maybe in part to Michelle Obama’s organic vegie patch — households with gardens increased from 36 million in 2008 to 43 million in 2009. And then there’s the rise and rise of the community garden.
In Sydney, spurred on by the example of the good people of Chippendale and their head guerrilla gardener Michael Mobbs, the council has appointed a Community Gardens Co-ordinator, Annie Walker (9265 9786) to give people a hand to set up their own community gardens — there are already 13. It’s a good way to make sure the food you eat really is fresh and local and to save money and have fun.
But there is one warning to come out of the American experience. Over there, a lot of novice gardeners bought their seeds from the same supermarkets they were trying to avoid and many of these seeds came from one huge nursery in Alabama. The result was a tomato blight fungus that swept across the country. Source your seeds carefully or, better still, collect your own. And if you want to get into food farming at home, get hold of a copy of WellBeing Organic Garden. It has all you need to know to become a little more self-sufficient in 2010.
They’re back
Two highly regarded Italian restaurant families who left the scene recently are coming back — and I for one am glad they are.
First, the Cipri Family — chef Carmelo and front-of-house Joe and Anthony with lots of backstage help from Mama Maria — who closed Swordfish at South Sydney Juniors last year have found a site for their new venture Cipri’s Italian (10 Elizabeth Street in Paddington no phone as yet), which will be opening early February. It’s a 100-seater with a bar and only one communal table (for those of you who remember Swordfish). Carmelo is looking forward to serving up a few classics, some with a modern twist. There’ll be plenty of produce — beef, pork, baby goat — coming out of the woodfired oven and Carmelo has tracked down a producer of the Florentine Chianina breed of cattle so he can serve a proper bistecca fiorentina. Maria will be making grissini and taralli (a hard biscuit flavoured with olive or roasted tomato) and also curing olives from South Australia. This is one to look forward to.
Five years after selling the Mixing Pot in Glebe, Peter Zuzza has bought La Disfida (109 Ramsay Street Haberfield, Ph 9798 8299) from longtime owner Rino Lattanza. Lovers of La Disfida’s pizza will be relieved by Peter’s answer to the question — what will be changing? “The biggest thing is not to change the pizza,” he said. “We’re re-painting, putting in some new light fittings and adding lot of seasonal antipasti to the menu. And there’ll be about 40 wines, mostly Italian with about five Australians in each category and a lot by the glass.” Peter has spent the summer being taught, by Rino, how to make pizza dough. It should be open by the time you read this. Peter’s last words: “It’s got to stay fun.”
Cuisine right now
Another reminder that Tony Bilson’s ambitious Cuisine Now project kicks off on January 11 with a two-hour masterclass with highly regarded French chef Nicolas Le Bec at Doltone House at Pyrmont. There’s a program of masterclasses and meals with globally respected chefs such as Michel Roux, Tetusya Wakuda, Reine Sammut and Cheong Liew. Get all the details and book at www.cuisinenow.com.au
Oysters in the vines
Wine and oysters. Oysters and wine. If these two words have you in a dreamy trance, you’d better find your way to Cassegrain Winery at Port Macquarie on Sunday January 24 for a free day full of — well, apart from oyster and wine tasting — cooking demos, live music and performers for the children. Visit www.cassegrain.com.au for details.
Belle Vue movement
You might remember the very beautiful old house right on the point overlooking Blackwattle Bay in Glebe. In September 2008, this column noted that, having spent a fortune renovating it for use as a restaurant, the City of Sydney rejected an application from the Tea Room’s Manuel Spinola to install another Tea Room 
there: problems with resident objections were cited. Since then, it has sat forlornly and expensively empty, gathering graffiti. Recently, we saw a DA notice on the door and enquiries have turned up some interesting information. Property consultants Urbis have produced a Development Proposal for the building, and have worked through all the objections — lack of parking, too much noise etc — and have made a recommendation to council that it be put out for tender as a daytime café with a limited licence primarily to service locals and those using the walkway around the foreshore. It is not to be, the report states, a “destination location”. Not sure how you police that. Locals will remember the Glebe Point Diner opening with exactly the same intentions only to attract punters from all over town. We’ll watch further developments with interest. Anyone interested in putting in an application to lease should, I’d guess, live locally.
Better food, cleverer kids
It looks like Jamie Oliver was right. That remarkable organisation, The American Association of Wine Economists, who prove to us such things as most people can’t tell the difference between $10 a bottle and $100 a bottle wine, and that the better the label the more we’ll pay, have branched out into, of all things, school meals with a report entitled Healthy School Meals and Educational Outcomes. Without going into it too deeply, the summary stated: “We find evidence that educational outcomes did improve significantly in English and Science. We also find that the campaign led to a 15 per cent fall in authorised absences — which are most likely linked to illness and health.” Out with the sausage rolls, in with the salad sambos — and up go the marks. Over to you, Kev.
