Raffles chats with Tawnya Bahr, chef and culinary adventurer

Joining chef, food consultant, and culinary adventurer, Tawnya Bahr on her Junior Foodie Tour of Pyrmont Markets, Raffles got to taste test awesome produce, meet the producers and farmers and find out where the food we eat comes from.

Raffles loved the foodie tour so much that after the tour he popped the question to Tawnya. In fact , he popped many questions… in an interview about fresh food, farmers and the importance of sustainable food.

Over to two of my favourite foodies…

Thank you so much for taking me around the Pyrmont Farmers markets and introducing me to the farmers who were all so, so nice. It was awesome and I learned lots and lots. Especially that smoked trout is delicious, that Rowie make the best gluten-free brownies and that marshmallows, which I’ve always thought were kind of icky, can be yummy if they’re made with good ingredients.

What do you love best about food?
Food is nourishing. It feeds our bodies but it also brings people together and strengthens bonds. Food, good food (and I don’t mean fancy, just good), can be such an enjoyable experience. That’s what I love most.
Me too.

Mama said you designed the yummy menu at Jungle Buddies. It’s the best! How did you come up with all the ideas?
Thank you! Sourcing good, local, seasonal ingredients it what I do so I based the menu on my years of experience cooking for my two kids and on my professional skills as a chef and a food consultant. You can taste the difference when something has been made fresh and not shipped in don’t you agree?

I do. It’s so much tastier.
I loved your tour of Pyrmont Farmers Markets. What other tours do you have for kids?
Happy to hear it! Currently I run my Foodie Junior Market Tours four or five times per year at the Pyrmont Growers’ Market and the Northside Produce Markets in North Sydney. In fact I have Junior Foodie tours at both in June. You can book on my website.
I’ll tell my friends they should go.

On our tour we learned that carrots weren’t originally orange. They were purple and white and yellow until the 17^th century and people changed the way they grew them so they’d be orange. I think that’s so cool. Do you know any other interesting facts about food?
I know a bunch of interesting things about food. Did you know that the only fruit that has its seeds on the outside is a strawberry? Or that the flower of a fig blooms on the inside and is not visible at all from the outside, and that the globe artichoke is a species of thistle; a flower and not a vegetable?!
Really? That’s so awesome.

You like to teach people about where food comes from. Do you think it is important to eat food straight from farms?
I think it’s important to support farmers and small food businesses by buying directly from the farmer or a local grocery store. Big supermarkets are convenient but I think it’s good to keep in mind that they are also big businesses whose purpose is to make money. The difference in my mind is that farmers, and smaller businesses are trying to make a living, to sustain themselves and be part of a community. Community is very important and by helping the people in our community we make it stronger and better for everyone.
We try to support our community and local small food businesses.

You do travel food tours too. Where is your favourite place in the world to visit for food?
I love every place I go. Each place inevitably has some delicious and unique food offering which I devour and fall in love with. I just got back from the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia and honestly, the seafood down there is just to die for! This is a short clip  of my trip.

Wow, that seafood looks epic. The oysters were so huge. Now I want to go there.

Do you have a favourite food. What is it?
I love love LOVE watermelon.
Yum, me too.

I was an eco-ambassador at school and now I work on the school newsletter reporting on the environment. So I want to ask you how important you think it is to eat sustainable food?
That depends on how important people think it is to be able to eat. I like to eat, in fact I need to eat, so I think it is incredibly important for us all to eat sustainable food. Sustainable is a word we hear a lot and I think it’s important to define it every now and again to remind ourselves what we are talking about. Sustainability means the ability of something to be maintained. If we DO NOT eat sustainable food that means sooner or later we will not be able to eat, our eating will be unsustainable and we will no longer be able to do it. Scary!
So we’ll run out of food? That’s my worst nightmare.

I think all kids should cook with their mum and dad. If you had one recipe you could share for kids to cook what would it be?
I agree with you and I thought of so many recipes before finally settling on my Chorizo and Tomato Relish Quesadilla because it’s easy and fun to make and it tastes great!
I love Quesidilla’s and chorizo, so I’m definitely going to try this. Thanks Tawnya.

THE RECIPE

Tawnya’s Chorizo and Tomato Relish Quesadilla 

(Makes 2)

Ingredients:
4 Corn Tortillas (I use La Tortelleria brand because the company uses Australian grown corn (non GMO corn)
3 tablespoons Atticus and Max tomato relish
60g mozzarella, grated
1 small chorizo, finely chopped and pan fried

Method:

1. Heat a fry pan over medium-high heat and cook the chorizo for 2-3 minutes then use tongs to remove the meat to a plate and leave the fat in the pan.
2. Reduce the heat to medium and add one of the tortillas.
3. Spoon half the tomato relish on to the tortilla and spread it around (like a pizza) then sprinkle half the cheese on evenly.
4. Add half the cooked chorizo in an even layer, then put the second tortilla on top and cook for a few minutes or until the cheese starts to melt.
5. Flip the whole thing over on the pan, this takes a little practice so the filling doesn’t fly out, and cook on the other side until the tortilla is getting crispy, about 2 minutes.
Remove to a cutting board and cut three times to divide into 6 even pieces. Serve. Enjoy!

Raffles was a guest of Tawnya on her Pyrmont Junior Foodies Tour. For more information on Tawnya’s fab family-friendly food tours, visit http://www.tawnyabahr.com

An award-winning travel writer and photographer, Aleney de Winter was fresh from school when she first set off to explore the far reaches of Australia with a two-man tent and a beaten-up Kingswood for company. Three decades, and two kids later, and she's still on the go, with her itchy-footed offspring in tow.