90 Ballina St Lennox Head 6687 7388
Weekend Breakfasts from 8am Tapas all day Lunch from 12pm Dinner from 6pm Open 7 days
mullumbimby PLUM CLAFOUTIS s 'REAT 0UB -EALS Ă€i>ÂŽv>ĂƒĂŒĂŠUĂŠ Ă€Âˆ]ĂŠ->ĂŒ]ĂŠ-Ă•Â˜ĂŠĂŠ s $AILY 3PECIALS 2IGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN nʇʣ£°Îä>“ "URRINGBAR 3T -ULLUM Ă•Â˜VÂ…ĂŠUÊ££°Îä>“ʇÊӍ“ ,UNCH AM PM
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Winner Best Restaurant Ballina Shire 50 PaciďŹ c Parade, Lennox Head For reservations call 6687 4333 www.blackboard.net.au
newrybar
Cafe 6684 2220 Resto 6684 2227
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pottsville Cottage on Coronation
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Modern Australian Cuisine Bush Tucker Winners of 2008 BEX Restaurant of the Year Award
12 Coronation Ave Pottsville Phone: 02 6676 4949
Tintenbar
Cottage at Cabba BAR & RESTAURANT
French country dining "9/ s #ATERING Open Wednesday to Saturday from 6pm and Sunday Lunch
Marty & Wendy Waters Shop 1/2 35 Tweed Coast Rd Cabarita Beach Phone 02 6676 3955
4HE /LD #HURCH 4INTENBAR 02 6687 8221
suppliers
CATERERS
sunforest LOCAL FREE RANGE ORGANIC CHICKENS AND TURKEYS FOR CHRISTMAS Available Byron Farmers Market Thursday and butchers in Mullum, Byron and Bangalow www.sunforest.com.au ph. 6684 7074 AUSTRALIAN CERTIFIED ORGANIC PRODUCER 2643A
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YUM CHA
Homewares Asian Groceries Fine Teas TM
1UALITY CREATIVE CATERING #ELEBRATION CAKES 'OURMET DELECTABLES 7OOD &IRED 0IZZA 4ASMAN 7AY "YRON !RTS )NDUSTRY %STATE
WWW LUSCIOUSFOODS COM
Bookings recommended CHEF’S TABLE WEDNESDAY DINNER $35 – 2 COURSE MEAL Available for functions & special occasions 72 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby
OCEAN SHORES
Jude Southwell and I share a Canberra background and a remembrance of late summer plums. Ever since then Jude – now working in a Byron Bay boutique – has been making Plum Clafoutis, year in year out. Her recipe, she tells me, is a departure from the classic in that it incorporates ground almonds. I am so inspired that I stock up on plums and go home to make my own particular version. A clafoutis is a French fruit dessert deriving from the town of Limousin and it is traditionally made out of cherries, over which is poured a pancake-like batter then baked. Purists leave the cherries unpitted, believing that the pits impart a glorious flavour when cooked, a little like burnt almonds. So perhaps Jude’s interpretation is not too loose after all. Apparently, however, what she is making, and what I subsequently made, is not strictly speaking a clafoutis anyway but a ‘flognarde’ – sometimes spelled ‘flaugnarde’: precisely the same recipe but utilising apples or berries or prunes or plums instead of cherries. Flognarde or clafoutis, this is precisely the sort of lovely light and easy dessert which suits the time of year and which enables you to use up the surplus of stone fruits still around. And plums are suddenly to be seen everywhere, tumbling piles in all their assorted colours and types. I used Black Diamonds (plums have gorgeous names, names like Mirabelle and Angelina, Quetsch and Greengage, Ruby Royal and Amber Jewel) – splitting them in half to expose their pale amber flesh, such a contrast to their jet-black exteriors. They may be red or green or maroon or gold, yellow or pink or purple. They belong to the rose family and have been cultivated since prehistoric times – longer, perhaps, than any other fruit except the apple. Alexander the Great is said to have introduced them into Greece from Syria or Persia, where the damson plum (another name!) had long been grown. Hybrids between plums and apricots have been produced recently – superior, it is claimed, to either of the parent fruit - with names like Plumcot (50% plum and 50% apricot), Aprium (75% apricot and 25% plum) and Pluot, the most popular, which is 75% plum and 25% apricot. Pluot, forsooth!
As children in Canberra we would often pick them, still unripe, off the trees and eat them, invariably resulting in stomach aches. In fact plums are, on the contrary, known for their laxative effects, especially in their dried form of prunes. (Prunes, incidentally, used to be dried in the sun like raisins but are now mostly dried in forced air tunnels for a more uniform product.) The exceedingly potent slivovitz is brandy made from fermented then distilled plum juice and is the national drink of Serbia. Hungarians make a jammy plum paste out of their plums, as well as the delectablesounding plum dumplings. In Japan they pickle plums into a sort of preserve known as umeboshi, which is used in rice balls. Jude tells me that she likes to use different types of plums for her clafoutis (clafoutes?), preferring the tart ones but occasionally going for a sweeter variety. My own clafoutis ended up itself being a hybrid of various recipes and my own imagination – and none the worse for it! I warmed my Diamond Black halves in a heavy-based pan with butter and brown sugar, sloshing in some marsala toward the end and letting it bubble away to evaporation. The sticky halves I arranged in a buttered baking dish on top of which I poured the batter : three eggs beaten to thick paleness with half a cup of caster sugar then 50 grams of butter I had melted in the same pan I used for the plums (still redolent of marsala), one cup of sifted plain flour and one cup of milk. Forty minutes later in a moderately hot oven it emerged fragrantly golden, strewn with the handful of flaked almonds I couldn’t resist adding as a final flourish. Monsieur Flognarde would have turned in his grave – but it was almost celestial.
SINGLES A LA MODE The Byron Shire is famous for many things, and not least its surfeit of singles. One restaurant hoping to make a difference to this situation is The Petit Snail in Byron Bay. This very popular French restaurant is introducing Singles’ Nights on the first Thursday of every month, kicking off on March 5. For $45 you receive a 2-course dinner with vegetarian options plus a welcoming glass of wine or beer upon arrival, and sharing a table with other like souls. What with the allFrench staff, traditional French food and tres French atmosphere, the romantic possibilities are endless! For more information check out their website www. thepetitsnail.com.au or ring 6685 8526.
snippets
LENNOX
FINS AT THE BAR With a nod to the economic downturn, Fins at Salt Village are introducing a new concept called Fins At The Bar, whereby for a mere $29 you are served up a main of the day with a matching wine. As the name suggests, this offer is only available at the (very glamorous) bar, for dinners daily from 5 pm and for lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12 midday. The menu will change every day and, in the words of chef/owner Steve Snow, will ‘showcase the food I like to eat at home.’ Fins is at Bells Boulevard in Salt Village, South Kingscliff, and bookings can be made on 6674 4833.
www.echo.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo February 24, 2009 35