Ahhh Byron Bay! What a unique and wonderful place, the best kind for a week away. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I was recently in Byron Bay and you’ll also know that I absolutely loved it. Beach, rainforest, mountains and beautiful sunsets, all at the same time, how could one not fall in love?
But that’s not what drew Robbie and I to Byron for our getaway. It all played a part, of course, but it was really the food that drew us there. And for very good reason.

Byron Bay and its surrounds are dotted with foodie gems. We were spoilt for choice for cafes and restaurants that offer gluten free, dairy free, vegan, nut free, and you-name-it dietary options, making it extremely easy for us fructose malabsorpers and the like to eat out. As you can imagine this was a highlight since I felt I could freely eat out almost anywhere. A few of my faves included the ridiculously good vegan smoothies at Naked Treaties, the delicious vegetarian nourish bowl at The Roadhouse, the Hare Krishna green curry at The Cardamom Pod, a proper good avo smash at Folk and some amazing brunches and coffee at Bayleaf. So so good!

Yummy vegetarian food from the Cardamon Pod in Byron Bay.

The food adventures did not stop there though. A prerequisite for our accommodation is always a full-size kitchen. I love having the option to stay in and cook, and rightfully so because the fresh local produce in Byron Bay was pumping! The weekly farmers market located just on the side of the town centre had everything we needed. And that’s where the magic really began. Especially when we found what we now refer to as the magical pineapple! The most deliciously sweet pineapple I’ve ever had and it only cost $2!

The foodie surprises continued when our overwhelmingly generous hosts surprised us with a delivery of a big container full of shelled pecans and an even bigger bag packed full of a variety of fresh herbs. We were pretty much in heaven.

With all this amazing fresh produce at our fingertips, I couldn’t help but get experimenting in the kitchen. An amazingly sweet and juicy pineapple and a heap of pecans… the answer was waiting in a fresh, hot batch of gluten free Hummingbird Pancakes made with buckwheat flour – definitely too good not to share!!

The last few hundred metres on the chain to the top of Mt Warning…

The view at the top makes it all worth while.

Food aside, Byron Bay was just a super cool place with plenty to keep us happy. If I had to offer my top three things to do in Byron, it would be eat, hike, and watch the sunrise and sunset. One morning we were up before the sun so we could run to the Lighthouse for the best vantage point to watch the sun hit the most Eastern point of Australia. Another day we drove inland through the Hinterland to the edge of Mount Warning for a hike that would leave my legs sore for days. With an almost vertical incline for the last 250 metres to reach the summit, it was a truly amazing experience… Luckily we had these pancakes on return to keep us going!

So there you have it, a few ideas for your next getaway and a damn good pancake recipe to enjoy.

Hummingbird Pancakes with caramelized pineapple, toasted pecans banana and yoghurt.

Hummingbird Pancakes

Serves 2

1 cup milk of choice

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

1/2 banana, mashed

1 egg

Pineapple

Pecans

Banana

Natural yoghurt
Measure out milk, add the apple cider vinegar and set aside to ‘sour’. Combine all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Mash banana in a small bowl, whisk in egg and soured milk. Add wet mixture to the dry, and mix well. Set aside for five minutes while you prepare some toppings. Place pineapple slices in a fry pan on medium heat to caramelise. You may also add the pecans to toast. Heat another fry pan on medium heat and begin cooking the pancakes – keeping an eye on the pineapple and pecans at the same time. Serve pancakes with caramelised pineapple, toasted pecans, fresh banana and a dollop of natural yoghurt. Enjoy!

Find out more about Stephanie Papillo and the Friendly Little Kitchen on:

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Robert Drewe discovers that one man’s Kipfler is another man’s Red Rascal, that Iceberg lettuces are out of fashion, and that the local markets are places of wonder…

You say potato, I say Kipfler. Or maybe Bintje, or Red Rascal, or Dutch Cream, or Pink Eye, or any of the other eighteen varieties of spuds now available in Australia. You say tomato, and I won’t even begin to describe the many types you can buy nowadays.

There are fifty of them, from the Amish Paste and Apollo to the Tiny Tim and Tommy Toe. And they’re not necessarily red either. Non-red tomatoes? What’s going on? They might be yellow, green, orange, pink, chocolate, even black. And they mightn’t be round shaped. They could resemble flattened eggs or pears or be as small as cherries. Or they might be bigger than softballs. Some tomatoes (the Green Zebra) are even striped.

I’m a weekly visitor to either the Bangalow or Byron Bay markets, places of wonder whose choices make your head spin. For example, it seems only yesterday that a single variety of potato existed. It was round, brown and dusty, but perfectly suited to either mashing or baking, chipping or boiling, and you bought it in bags weighing one stone (6.35 kg), much of which was encrusted dirt. It had a name. We called it a “potato”. Now, potatoes are washed and brushed and custom-grown for a particular cooking process.

Remember when we ate one variety of tomato? A “tomato” it was called. And guess how many types of lettuce there were? One — it was called a “lettuce”. As for carrots, well, you get the picture.

Carrots today? Would you prefer a Stefano, a Navarre, a Red Hot or a Cellobunch? Perhaps the Condor, Red Brigade, Red Count or Red Sabre would better suit your taste? Western Reds are popular, as are Majestic Reds.

The Royal Chantenay variety, I learned from the website of the World Carrot Museum (motto: “Discover the Power of Carrots”) is “wide-shouldered and highly tapered, with good internal colour”. It sounds like pretentious wine-speak. Thankfully, as far as I can see, carrots have remained orange.

How about the humble lettuce of yesteryear? The staple of our salads (always lavishly smothered with mother’s mayonnaise made of Nestles condensed milk, Keen’s mustard and vinegar), has been revealed nowadays as an Iceberg. Alas, the crunchy and often shredded Iceberg has long been overwhelmed by its fashionable cousins: the Butter, the Red Butter, the Cos, the Baby Cos, the Red Oak, the Green Oak, the Red Coral, the Green Coral and the Mignonette.

If it’s still a mainstay in sandwich shops, the Iceberg has long been elbowed off the restaurant plate by those more stylish salad greens: the endive, radicchio, rocket, witlof and watercress.

Incidentally, for all its many varieties and colours, the tomato is strangely absent from the traditional Aussie salad. Sadly, one day it just disappeared. Maybe it was seen to have design flaws. Like the poor Iceberg, it was suddenly shunned by smart diners as out-of-date, surfacing apologetically as an Italian or Greek peasant-style side dish.

Fruit is another sad story for me. Strawberries aren’t what they used to be: smaller and sweeter. Yes, there are plenty of apple varieties around, some of the recent types, like the Pink Lady, the Jazz and the Sundowner, even trademarked. Granny Smiths are still hanging in there, but try buying the crispest, sharpest apple of all, the Jonathan.

According to the Aussie Apples website, “The Jonathan is an old-fashioned eating apple favoured by many mature Australians who treasure their crisp, juicy flesh and tangy flavour.” (“Old-fashioned”, “mature”: that’s damning with faint praise.) So most orchardists have given up on them.

Produce now has to meet the glossy appearance and storage standards of the supermarkets; taste seems secondary. Food is more brightly coloured. Grey used to be a meal’s standard shade. Recalling the dinners of my childhood (known as “tea”), all lovingly prepared and relentlessly overcooked (“well done” in the 1950s and 60s Anglo-Australian style), tough grey lamb and grey beef spring to mind.

I especially remember my mother’s grey Brussels sprouts, and grey beans that after ten minutes’ chewing turned to strings of sisal in a child’s mouth. The Aztecs could have woven rugs from them.

No longer. Today’s veggies might be flashier but there’s a bonus – at least you can swallow them. For freshness and taste, however, buy them from the markets.

Robert Drewe’s latest books, The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon, are now in bookshops.

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