Southerly: Coming Up For Air
239 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
oat cuisine
badoom-tish
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Lilith __, in reply to
badoom-tish
:-)
Have you seen this? -
Lilith __, in reply to
All I know is, tastes good, feels good ( and has kept all my lovely mother’s side of the family alive into their nineties-)
see, food-blogging already :-)
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
sure do eat a lot of oats these days, and corn. polenta, FTW.
One of the things that's readily available in supermarkets over here, but I think is mostly stuck in organic stores in NZ, is buckwheat groats - they make a great couscous-like side dish, or a nice porridge, and they're incredibly filling. Really good with a nice hot chilli. We've taken to eating them fairly regularly.
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The biggest bugger I've found with going wheat-free is bread. I love bread. To my wife's healthy disgust, I especially love junky, white, processed-to-buggery bread, toast-sliced, with real butter and half a jar of peanut butter slathered on, or fried bacon and the melted butter it was cooked in, with tomato sauce. MMMMMMMMMMMM!
Now all I have is the memories sigh. The benefits of not eating it far out-weigh the hedonistic delight. But finding decent gluten-free bread is a problem. We tried making our own, as we had just got into making our own wheat-based bread, but ended up with little flat bricks. We've been through the gamut of the commercial GF breads - vogels, oka-ay; burgen, better. We've ventured into the organics store for some of the more specialist breads - Dovedale, not worth the money, ditto for Purebread. And we've finally found one that I'm prepared to eat as sandwich bread - Thoroughbread, which is made in Levin. We buy direct from them at the Paraparaumu market on Saturday mornings, but they have a wide distribution network (NI only, sorry), according to their site.
The place that surprised me most was Pak'n'Save which not only has a wider range of GF foods than most supermarkets, but places them with like foods and labels them separately on the shelf, instead of segregating them on a couple of shelves in the "organics and mineral supplement' ghetto.
The other big loss is, of course, beer. But I can still drink wine ;-) and when I want something cold and vaguely fizzy, cider is a reasonable substitute.
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Weasel scream for icecream...
Hmmm, how about stoat milk?
though it may be an ermine field!
there's no reason to ferret...Love that 'oat cuisine idea
Sounds like porridge book
waiting to happen...and as a fungi I hear ergot
gives an oaty fun high...being a cereal punster
I'm wondering where we
could go with Oat Couture
(Grass skirts with wheat belts?)
Oat Bourgeoisie
(lend me your ears...) -
David Haywood, in reply to
Hebe wrote:
May I suggest coppicing of trees (for local info google “Brandenburg coppice”) as I assume you will be allowed a logburner.
A ha! As the lovely Ian Dalziel will confirm, there is already an area on our site plan marked 'coppice'.
I'm a huge fan of coppicing, but only really familiar with how it's done in the UK. Other than planning a row of Sweet Chestnut, I am rather vague as to suitable species in NZ (although I have noted that eucalypts are popular for coppicing here). I'd heard of the Brandenburg Coppice, but my quick search doesn't really come up with anything useful (I have been planning a proper trawl of academic journals).
Now, of course, I'm hoping that with a name like 'Hebe' the phenomenum of nominative determinism might have kicked in, and that you will be an expert botanist. If so, I am all ears for any advice that you may wish to impart.
I also had vague plans to beard the legendary Euan Mason when he next graces these pages, as I understand that he has had the odd thing to do with trees in his capacity as an AP in forestry.
Islander wrote:
... here are the totally secret oatmilk recipes we teach the wee ones and the older ones and just about bloody well every one...
Thank you so much for that. We are now complete converts to oat milk, but the price is rather crippling. Will attempt your recipe ASAP!
I must say I'm surprised that there's no NZ-made oat milk available for sale (the only stuff stocked in our supermarket is from Australia).
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David, I really do hope things start to improve for you and your family from now on. As a non-Christchurch resident there are a few things that have helped my understanding of the impact of the earthquakes, and which I will never forget. These include that immediate report you wrote on your phone (and the image of Bob emerging from his hiding place under the floorboards), and your ongoing battles for geographic, social and insurance justice. (Emma's broken pottery and the brickface typeface are other examples, thanks to PA.)
Regarding food allergies, I have come to the conclusion that there is something significant happening in the food environment with sensitive children the most vulnerable, and which manifests in all sorts of ways including poor sleep. For example, every autistic child I have ever come across has digestive problems, and parents try a variety of diets with usually limited success. But a casein/gluten free diet seems to be standard. Others avoid onions or garlic, fructose or fructans. Many find supplements of omega three or melatonin for sleep, help.
I think the best way is to try and eat food that is grown locally on good healthy land, with minimal processing or additives before eating. Hard to achieve though.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I must say I’m surprised that there’s no NZ-made oat milk available for sale (the only stuff stocked in our supermarket is from Australia).
Look how long it took to get Cider, and NZ made is crap. We got apples for Australia in this country, we got shit Cider finally. I'm gonna make my own as soon as 2 runs of IPA are finished.
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JacksonP, in reply to
(lend me your ears...)
'What you got in that sack?'
'Ears'
Private roamin', aye?
Juli, don't go!
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David and family, sincerely hope your plans come into fruition and you find some peace in your new location. All the best.
JacksonP.
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Sacha, in reply to
bravo
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Wriggledintiggledinn Cider...
Look how long it took to get Cider
Luckily, David and family are close to a good apple source
The folk who run the aforementioned Dunsandel Store
also run Camla Farm which specialises in apples
organic apple juice and cider! -
Fooman, in reply to
I’m a huge fan of coppicing, but only really familiar with how it’s done in the UK. Other than planning a row of Sweet Chestnut, I am rather vague as to suitable species in NZ (although I have noted that eucalypts are popular for coppicing here). I’d heard of the Brandenburg Coppice, but my quick search doesn’t really come up with anything useful (I have been planning a proper trawl of academic journals).
Willow is the classic coppicing (sic?) tree – is actually the second most invasive extoic species after Pinus Radiata. A very brief google gives the following (salix = willow, the rest are obvious):
Short rotation coppice tree species selection for woody biomass production in New Zealand
Ralph E.H Sims, Tavale G Maiava, Bruce T Bullock
“Nine species of Eucalyptus were compared with one selected species of each of Salix, Acacia and Populus for woody biomass production when grown in a temperate climate under a short rotation regime. Ten clones of the promising species E. viminalis were also included in the small plot, randomised block experiment. The trees, planted at a stocking density of 5000 stems/Ha, were harvested as single stems at 3 yr of age, then again as coppice regrowth following a further 3-yr rotation. Tree survival, stump diameters (mm), heights (m), and tree dry weights were measured and used to determine the above ground biomass yields. The four replicated plots, each with five trees, of E. viminalis 3680, E. botryoides, E. pseudoglobulus and S. matsudana x alba (Moutere) showed no tree mortality even after the second harvest. Most of the other species had over 80% survival rates, E. nitens being the exception at below 50%. Average heights and dry weights of the harvested coppice trees were significantly greater than when first harvested as single stems. Mean annual incremental biomass dry matter yields (tdm/ha/yr) at the single stem harvest ranged from 2.00 tdm/ha/yr for E. nitens up to 39.72 tdm/ha/yr for E. viminalis 3683. At the coppice harvest E. nitens was again the lowest yielding (2.94 tdm/ha/yr) with other species ranging up to 50.64 tdm/ha/yr for E. pseudoglobulus. On combining total biomass yields from both rotations, most Eucalyptus species produced significantly more biomass than the other genera, with E. viminalis 3678 and E. pseudoglobulus exceeding 35 tdm/ha/yr during the 6-yr period.”
FM
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nzlemming, in reply to
Got a chisel? I'd like to write that down.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
cider is a reasonable substitute
Ginger beer is good too
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
it seems a little…reductive
oh Lucy! That was terrible. Also very geeky.
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David Haywood, in reply to
Short rotation coppice tree species selection for woody biomass production in New Zealand
Many thanks, Fooman. Other priorities have meant that I haven't given the topic of coppicing the attention it deserves. In fact, I know so little about trees, etc. that I wasn't even sure if results from (for example) Palmerston North would apply to Canterbury.
The paper you've pointed out looks very helpful -- I shall study it in detail.
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
We are now complete converts to oat milk
Not as good as ow milk or eep milk, in my opinion.
All the best for a root-growing, permacultural and stable 2012.
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If you'll all excuse me I'm gonna rant about food and allergies, feel free to skip ahead to an interesting post :).
So the place I work has a reasonable number of folks who work on food and flavour and nutrition so we get regular seminars and bearing in mind I'm a DNA scientist at heart I have read more than my share of papers on the subjects (yes plural).
One thing to note is the increase in allergies is real, kinda. Yes there are more folks with allergies but it's a very difficult thing to untangle from other data particularly in the western world.
More people are alive who wouldn't be, we are very good at keeping people alive who would normally have died as a baby, I'm one of them. What that does to the stats nobody is sure but it probably has an effect.
People are healthier now, which seems an odd thing to mention but if you have a really serious problem with your health you are less likely to notice or care about a food allergy and less likely to report it. Even though ironically the two may be connected.
There are other complications to the stats but the point is nothing is simple in this science, so simplistic answers like "eat this" or "don't eat that" are almost certainly wrong and should be treated with enormous suspicion.
And our understanding of allergic responses is still limited so anyone claiming to know why people are having allergic responses to food is either a genius or wrong.
But with all that in mind we do know the first world diet has changed dramatically. We know this has consequences for the bacteria in our guts but we know almost nothing about those bacteria. We know this probably has a relationship to food allergies but we don't know exactly what that relationship might be yet. That is my summation of the state of scientific knowledge in this field (with the caveat that for some very specific cases we know a bit more).
So for me there are two bits of advice I am prepared to give about food as a scientist.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
This is stolen unashamedly from Michael Pollan
In short if your grandmother would have recognised it as food, it is food. Ergo an energy drink is not food.
Don't eat too much, well duh, but be aware big plates = big meals.
And most of your diet should be plants, meat is fine (unless you have objections for some reason) but in any meal meat should be less than 25%.The second piece of advice is do what works.
Everyone is different, we have different genes and different gut bacteria and etc etc. As a consequence what is a miracle cure for me will not be a miracle cure for you. Experiment with yourself (bearing in mind n=1) and do what works for you.
Speaking as a person and not a scientist, Molten is a damn fine restaurant.
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Extras for the oat milk:
Some good old dock leaf, a Bay leaf or two.
Oat is ready.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Yes there are more folks with allergies but it’s a very difficult thing to untangle from other data particularly in the western world. More people are alive who wouldn’t be, we are very good at keeping people alive who would normally have died as a baby,
At last, a rare glimpse at reality.
I have often claimed, without much in the way of evidence, that allergies are mearly the latest health fad. This bit of information fits nicely with something else I often ask when confronted with the latest cure for a disease we have lived with for generations upon generations.
If we keep keeping people alive longer and longer.
a, where are we going to put them and feed them?
b, what kind of diseases are we going to find that have longer gestation periods, or tend to attack bodies over 100 years old?.
c, As organisms die off a natural balance ensues, by keeping people alive longer are we not also keeping diseases alive longer?
yrs, Worried of Wokingham. -
JacksonP, in reply to
in any meal meat should be less than 25%.
Yeah, right! Is that even... legal in Newzilland?
One day I'd love to discuss this subject with you Bart. It has become a bit of a pet topic of mine.
I'm one of them.
+1
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
I’d love to discuss this subject with you Bart
Dude you have an espresso machine and a table tennis table and you're walking distance away ...
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
by keeping people alive longer are we not also keeping diseases alive longer?
No idea. But my optimistic feeling is we will reach a point where we can deal with pretty much every cause of death, except accidental. When that will happen I don't know. We are making extraordinary progress understanding our own biology and I really don't see any solid reason why the "natural" causes of death are certain.
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