Regional Food Value-Add 07 conference
My day job at the National Food Industry Strategy crosses with my Regional Food agenda on lots of occasions (which is why I'm there, despite an ambivalence to a lot of the big business 'functional foods'/ processed food things they're involved with. In March NFIS Ltd. sponsored a conference for over 100 delegates invited from food groups, govt. departments and regional producers. It was a real buzz and because I was helping organise, I got close and talked with some of the speakers.

I've been putting up some articles and content on the valueadd section of the NFIS website which you may be interested in. We video-taped the whole conference and those are online, synchronised with their PowerPoint presentations. (In a nifty software application that Regional Food's TV guy Greg Sneddon is promoting)

 If you've got time, and you're a regional producer wanting to move into higher value products, it's worth going through them. And you might like to look at some of the follow up stories I'm finishing off for the site.

Fred Harden 25 April 07
 

Farming Small Areas magazine
If you don't get The Land, our big country newspaper in NSW, you wouldn't have seen their regular bi-monthly(?) insert magazine Farming Small Areas. While its content is earnest and covers country producer stories like we do, the layout is lousy, the pictures pedestrian. It could be heaps better.

In the recent April/May issue there's an article on Alan and Lisette Snaith's Galloway beef business. They invited us to dinner on New Year's Eve and I did a photo diary piece here.

We get a mix of newspapers that drives our newsagent nuts each time a new staff member has to do deliveries. We get The Land, Weekly Times, and the state papers on the day their food inserts appear, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Courier Mail, Advertiser, Canberra Times etc. Being in the country they can arrive a day or so later than the city so what lands in the driveway is always a surprise. Thursday's bundle hits with a thud with The Land and The Australian (the Media section).

We rarely get a weekend paper because we're still reading the week days.

There's a trade expo that hinges around Farming Small Areas which is really popular. The next one is 9-10 November at the Hawkesbury Showground in Richmond (on the edge of Sydney).

Fred Harden 25 April 07

Update on our future
We've received a lot of your responses to our 'finding a home' dilemma. Thank you for caring about the idea. We really are actively seeking an ongoing solution and despite a few dead ends, there are some positive signs of interest. One of them would be terrific if it happens.

In the meantime, we're working through the subscribers who want refunds and as my day job is paying for that, it might take a couple of paydays to clear the list. I'll notify you all as soon as the payments are made. If you'd still like a refund, see our subscription page for details how to do it.

Fred Harden 24 April 07
 

Dazed and confused
If you've come here from the homepage, you will see that we're back to looking for a publisher. 

Two weeks ago we made the decision not to continue with Made-to-Measure Publications. The deal was that they gave us a token $1 dollar payment for the rights to the title, and an agreement that we were to continue creating the editorial content for five years.

We expected in that time the magazine would grow and return us with at least the investment we've spent so far, and continue to be a great reason to come to work in the morning (or to go out photographing at dawn).

We had finished around half the pages for the next issue that we had expected to print ourselves in May last year. And laid them out. We did a limited print mockup to get advertisers excited and John Bushell, who worked on the ad sales of Sydney Weekender for MTM, started chasing ad sales in the Fleurieu. It was a slow process, even with terrific support from Tori Moreton and Pip Forrester in McLaren Vale. In around October, when we had set the deadline to have enough ads to print, and when we had to finish the issue, there still wasn't enough, and a decision was made to change the way we were seeking ads.

John Bushell came up with an approach that saw the region's tourist and food group bodies make a commitment to a number of ad pages before we spent money on doing the editorial coverage. The idea was that we'd help them sell to their members, but we wouldn't get to the stage of producing lovely material on the region, that still wasn't going to convince advertisers to commit. It wasn't how we'd planned to do the magazine, but with the region agreeing to our editorial independence in what we covered (mostly) it seemed that we were being realistic. And we decided to cover three regions per issue so that spreads the advertiser interest.

In early February there was enough support for MTM to decide to go ahead and we were going to push for an April print and on-sale. I was anxious because Jan and I had decided to take two weeks off for a break, but we figured we could finish the content before then. There was more advertising booked or promised for Issue 4 and it was looking positive. So I asked for a commitment to a firm forward schedule so that I could swing back into creating editorial content full-time (I've been working freelance for the National Food Strategy Ltd on their websites).

When the publisher couldn't give that assurance, I decided that we needed to find someone who could. And someone who would give the magazine at least another few issues to grow. So, we're back chasing some of the options we'd turned away in the last few months.

We know the magazine will happen and the website will continue. We'll make some changes to that soon and add some of that magazine content we've prepared. Which raised an idea.

Can I ask for some of your feedback on an option we have considered?

Since it costs so much to go to print, (and that's where most of the advertising dollars go), compared to the costs of creating the editorial content (travel, writing time, photography, layout), what if we created a paid subscription for that material as web content?

Would you pay, say $20 a year, for continuously updated content online?
Would you pay more with video and audio pod downloads? Less?

How about regular Adobe PDF pages you can view or print?

Or we could put the current material we have ready up online for print edition subscribers only. But judging from the hundreds who didn't offer an email address when they subscribed, I figure they're not likely to want a web version (and hey, I love nicely printed magazines too!)

There has to be a way to make this work. And if you have any suggestions as to a suitable publishing 'home' for a magazine that wants to change the world, please email me.

Fred Harden 7 March 07
 

Paris on a Plate
Stephen Downes, Murdoch Books $24.95 paperback

We had a particular interest in tracking down this book, as we’re planning a trip to Paris and thought some tips from a well-known restaurant reviewer could be handy. Sections of it have been published in the press; we spotted the chapter on Pascal Barbot’s Astrance in The Canberra Times.

The slim volume recounts the gastronomic fortunes and misfortunes of a food writer and Francophile (his wife is French) on a short sojourn in Paris. We follow Stephen Downes to multi-starred and more modest restaurants, as well as Paris landmarks like the Lido, the Crazy Horse, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. We hear in some detail about his unfortunate episode of food poisoning and his attack of sentimental weeping in the cafe at the Institut du Monde Arabe. We walk the streets, plumb the depths of Parisian swimming pools and meet his in-laws.

Yet somehow, although the writing is entertaining, there’s something missing from this book. It’s like a recipe with a forgotten ingredient – somehow it doesn’t quite come together. After mulling over this for some time, I concluded that the missing ingredient was pleasure.

The Paris trip is all-too-obviously for the express purpose of writing this book. The author is the ‘guest’ of many of the high-priced establishments. One can only assume that this comes with the understanding that they will be given a ‘write-up’, although I doubt that the Lido would be particularly thrilled with theirs. The gruelling schedule of a food-writer on a mission comes through only too clearly as Downes frets over delays that might make him late for lunch. Even his dinner with his parents-in-law is, this time, a business appointment.

Nonetheless, Paris on a Plate contains useful information about what’s hot and what’s not on the Paris gastronomy scene (and the Sydney scene, as the Melbournian Downes takes a sling at Sydney’s Icebergs). Downes’s conclusion that French chefs are being out-performed elsewhere in the world is unlikely to discourage the visitor seeking traditional French food, well-prepared, and Chartier, the Lyonnais and Willi’s Wine Bar emerge as worthy contenders. You may wish to pass on paying 95 Euros (currently around A$160) for a main course at the likes of Ledoyen, but armed with this book, at least you’ll be forewarned.

Jan O'Connell 18 February 07

Familiar country
Tastes of the Outback: Culinary journeys off the beaten track RMW Classic Publications RRP $34.95 paperback

There’s no author listed for this fat, glossy publication. Most likely it was penned by a copywriter or a PR consultant. There’s a strong publicity element about this book, which has clearly been underwritten by Meat & Livestock Australia and Tourism Australia, both of whom have their logos prominently featured. Despite this, the photographs by Jeremy Simons (at least he gets a credit) are wonderfully evocative and whole exercise comes off rather well.

The book is as much a travel brochure as it is a cookbook. It features a number of iconic outback properties, at which you can stay, experience the ‘real Australia’ and be extremely well fed. These range from El Questro in the Kimberleys to Trilby Station in outback New South Wales and Daintree Lodge in Tropical North Queensland. Other chapters feature noted food regions, such as the Barossa, the Riverland and the Orange region of New South Wales. The CWA gets a couple of chapters too, even though it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the book.

The recipes range from the traditional (Damper, Jackaroo’s Pie and Outback Beef Stew) to the somewhat incongruous (Lamb Cutlets on a Nicoise Salad). Some of them have a fairly significant reliance on store-cupboard ingredients like tins of creamed corn – not exactly gourmet fare. Then, of course, there are the pieces de resistance of country cooking: sponge rolls, fruit cakes and steamed puddings, courtesy of the CWA ladies.

I doubt that I’ll ever use this book to cook from (although the Wattleseed Merigue with Quandong Sauce sounds like a nice change from your usual Pavlova), but it captures something of the essence of outback Australia. It would make a great gift for an overseas friend or visitor. And it provides plenty of visual stimulation for Aussie city dwellers – maybe enough to have you heading out for a taste of the bush.

Jan O'Connell 18 February 07

I agree, there's a big gap between image and text which lets this book down. Jeremy Simons photographs are observant, and the design is clean and attractive (although it gets formulaic - if the food shot has yellow and green elements, the opposite page photograph has the same colours). Some spreads are really nice, I loved this detail of a stack of multicoloured enamel plates. Some of the grid's have individual images that cry out to be full pages.

The CWA cookery competition section just looks stodgy, with flat colour, black and white images that look like they've been taken by someone else (although there's no separate credit).

A common narrator writing about these various bits of Australian life would have helped a lot, now it feels a bit like a catalogue with obvious advertorial that after 320 glossy pages someone said, 'that's enough!'. And sent it off to China to be printed (very nicely).

Forget the recipes, eat the pictures.

Fred Harden 18 February 07