N E W S TOP NIGERIAN CHEF AND FOOD DESIGNER HEADED FOR DUNEDIN Otago Polytechnic’s Food Design Institute has confi rmed Nigerian chef and food designer Michael Elegbedé’ as one of the keynote speakers for the International Food Design Conference and Studio in Dunedin in June. Elegbedé’, who recently returned to Lagos from New York to establish a restaurant that tells the story of Nigeria’s food culture, is considered to be one of the globe’s up-and-coming chefs. After completing a degree at the Culinary Institute of America, he moved to New York to work at three Michelin Star Eleven Madison Park. Working with food designer Emilie Baltz, Elegbedé’ spent time at French Laundry and Alinea. His love of food comes from growing up in the kitchen at home, and when his family moved to America, he spent all his spare time cooking in his mother’s Nigerian restaurant. Dunedin-based international exporter Silver Fern Farms is once again the key supporter of the conference that celebrates Otago Polytechnic’s 50th anniversary. The Polytechnic opened as a technical institute in 1966, and is now one of New Zealand’s top providers of hands-on education. 6 MARCH 2016 AROHA CLINCHES 2ND CHEESE TITLE Fiji Running out of Food Cyclone Winston survivors in Fiji are now facing another crisis, with supermarkets and shops running out of basic food items. The island’s Consumer Council says items such as potatoes, garlic, fl our, oil, salt, blue peas, dhal, breakfast crackers and sugar are quickly running out, and supermarkets say they are facing diffi culties in re-stocking their shelves due to high demand from consumers. Some supermarkets have seen shoppers buying basic food items and other non-food items to make packs to donate to the cyclone-struck families. Supermarkets have also sold some of the food items in high volume to government departments, aid agencies, civil society organisations, religious organisations and other donor groups which are taken to distribute to the affected families. As expected, markets are running low on fresh supplies of green vegies, root crops and other vegetables. Cyclone Winston hit the island on February 7, and was the strongest storm on record. Dutch cheesemaker Jeanne van Kuyk of Aroha Organic Goat Cheese has clinched the prestigious Milk Test NZ Champion Cheesemaker Award - the fi rst and only female artisan winner to win this accolade. The 69-year-old from Te Aroha received the award for the second time at the New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards gala dinner and awards ceremony and paid tribute to her “girls,” otherwise known as her milking herd of 30 dairy goats. “We live under the mountain of love, Te Aroha, which is where the magic happens. Every day at 5am I ring the bell in the paddock to wake up my girls who follow me to the milking shed,” van Kuyk says. “I’m thrilled to have the life we have. Aroha is truly driven on love and passion for what we do.” Aroha Organic Goat Cheese also took home the 180 degrees Champion Goat Cheese Award for the second year in a row for its Aroha Raw Milk Jubilee, which achieved a rare score of 100. “Jeanne and her girls have created a superbly crafted aged goat cheese exhibiting an extraordinary depth and length of fl avour,” Master Judge Russell Smith says. “This really is a fantastic cheese.” Combining her passion for goats and farming, Jeanne began cheese making in 2004. Now Aroha Organic Goat Cheese boasts a range of ten classic Dutch goat cheeses using both raw and pasteurised milk. “Each cheese is a little journey starting with organic soils and beautiful herbal lay pastures, to healthy ‘girls’, happy milking, and dedicated cheese making resulting in delicious organic cheese,” van Kuyk says. Now in its 13th year, the 2016 New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards attracted more than 420 cheeses from small artisans to large scale producers, judged across 23 categories. The conference will run from June 29 to July 1, with $395 earlybird tickets from www.eventfi nder.co.nz. From March 18, full price tickets will be available for $450 for the three-day event. NEWS SNIPS CRUSADE Canadian software developer James McGowan has visited a New Zealand McDonald’s as part of a ‘300 McDonald’s restaurants in 53 countries‘ crusade and says the Georgie Pies are delicious… although he forgot to blow fi rst. KIWI ‘ALL HOPS’ The Kiwi ‘All Hops’ have beaten the Aussie ‘Wallabeers’ in a ‘Bledislow Cup of craft beer’ in Wellington. In total, 22 craft brews were sampled by a range of judges, and no one mentioned the cricket. BURIAL RIGHTS Ngati Kahu in the Far North says bodies can’t be buried at sea in “our food baskets,” saying the Environment Protection Agency had no right to authorise fi ve burial-at-sea locations off its coast.
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