Get your game face on for #ByronFoodFest

The inaugural Byron Bay Fine Food & Beverage Festival will be held at Elements of Byron. Image: Supplied

Take Byron Bay and its surrounding beaches. Now add food and drink to the mix and you have the perfect formula for Saturday's inaugural Byron Bay Fine Food & Beverage Festival. The June 3 event will see an amazing choice of food and beverages on offer - from high-end signature plates created by 12 celebrated local chefs to artisan ingredients produced in Byron's backyard.

Byron Bay Fine Food & Beverage Festival organiser Remy Tancred. Image: Supplied

"Those who are interested in food and wine are also interested in provenance. This event will be a great opportunity to show off our wonderful Byron Bay food and drink produce which our local community is justifiably proud of," says festival organiser Remy Tancred, who is also behind the hugely successful Sample: A Taste of Northern NSW festival held four times a year in nearby Bangalow. Here are a few reasons to visit the first-of-its-kind festival.

Sample dessert queen Katrina Kantani's Bangalow Mess - one of her signature desserts at #ByronFoodFest Image: Supplied

1. To rub shoulders with some of Australia's top chefs
Enjoy food prepared by some of Australia’s best-known chefs including special guest Neil Perry, (Rockpool Group), Darren Robertson and Mark Labrooy (Three Blue Ducks), Sean Connelly (Balcony Bar and Oyster Co.) and Ben Devlin (Paper Daisy).

Salumi Australia will be one of many artisan ingredients on show at #ByronBayFest 

2. Stock your picnic hamper with artisan produce
Nosh on native ingredients such as KombuCody (Australian wild seaweed harvested by hand), Bottarga Australia (mullet roe sourced from Tweed Heads and transformed into this golden delicacy), Salumi Australia and wild lime products made by indigenous company First Food Co). Brookfarm will also launch Brookie's Slow Gin which uses its macadamia nuts as one of the botanicals.

Rub shoulders with artfully dishevelled locals at Bangalow Farmer's Market. Image: Supplied

3. Mix with laidback locals at the Bangalow Farmers' Market 
Head to the hinterland to the delightful village of Bangalow where you will find Tawnya Bahr, of Straight to the Source, guiding VIP festival-goers around the market. The market is more like a social occasion as the community's artists, artisans, bakers, victualers, therapists, farmers and friends flock to the market with the enchanted forest vibe.

4. To live it up at Elements of Byron
Enjoy wandering around the grounds of Elements of Byron, where the festival takes place on June 3. For the duration of the day-long event, 12 of the country's top chefs will offer up a signature dish for a mere $10 a plate that you can pair with wine from one of 12 visiting wineries. Schedule a return visit to Graze Restaurant for product-driven dishes such as slow-cooked Milly Hill lamb shank terrine with almond hummus, pacific raw tuna, crispy duck skin, shitaake dust and pickled cucumber.

Learn from the masters at the #byronfoodfest this weekend. Image:  Supplied

5. To mix it with the best in a masterclass
Attend a masterclass and learn from producers such as Pierre Issa, of Pepe Saya Butter Co., a bonafide Australian food hero who will be demonstrating how to Churn Some Butter. Chef Luca Ciano will also be demonstrating how to make proscuitto and Olsson Salts will be showcasing its Salts of the Earth at the beachfront festival.

Much of the bounty for the #ByronFoodFest comes from the hinterland, where macadamia nuts farms are prevalent.

Tickets are $20 and include festival entry, a tote bag, wine glass, festival program, masterclass and live music access, and an opportunity to meet some of Australia’s top food and beverage royalty.
Visit byronbayfood.com.au/sample-food-festival/

Tea festival: a steep learning curve

In the frantic, frenetic caffeine-fuelled city of Sydney, there's something rather reassuring about the ritual of making tea.  After a hugely successful inaugural event in 2014, the Sydney Tea Festival is back at Carriageworks on August 21 with dozens of specialty tea purveyors and a series of expert-run workshops.

Learn all about the art of taking tea, which is as much about the ritual as the beverage itself.   Image: Supplied

Sydney Tea Festival co-founder and owner of The Rabbit Hole Organic Tea Bar Corinne Smith says this year's event is expected to attract more than 5,000 tea lovers on the day.  “Tea is trending in Australia at the moment and the success of last year’s festival is a testament to that. Given Australians buy $384 million worth of tea every year, we only envision the festival getting bigger and better over time.” 

This year's Sydney Tea Festival is set to attract crowds of up to 5000 tea lovers.                    Image: Supplied

Sydney Tea Festival co-founder and owner of Perfect South Green Tea Renee Creer adds that the event "celebrates what specialty tea in Australia is all about – quality, diversity and creativity.”

Creer defines specialty tea as the leafy grade tea produced with the intention to enhance characteristics in the leaf. She says it tends toward a more artisan approach to manufacture as opposed to mass-production and tea packaged as loose leaf, rather than packaged in tea bags.

The Tippity trio will be teaming up with Black Star Pastry for a tea and dessert pairing workshop. Image: Supplied.

Forget wood panelling and red upholstery. The tea market will be held under the broad rustic beams of the Carriageworks building with the long antique room featuring dozens of stallholders selling and sampling tea. 

Sydney Tea Festival is housed in the rustic rail sheds of Carriageworks in Eveleigh.            Image: Supplied 

Those who appreciate a steaming cup of tannins will find everything from specialty top-drawer loose leaf teas to herbal tisanes of all styles and tea pots from Samantha Robinson Handmade Porcelain. There will also be mountains of macarons from Mak Mak, Black Star Pastry treats and steamed buns and pandan pancakes from Tsuru Food Truck. Best of all is the brew lounge where you can kick back and listen to music while sipping a sneaky cup of LongLeaf Tea Vodka. 

The Sydney Tea Ceremony has a line-up of workshops on how to best extract flavour from dried tea. Image: Supplied.

Lovers of quality ceramics will also get ample opportunity to demonstrate their obsessiveness toward quality teaware at stalls selling items made of clay and hardened by heat. In keeping with the environmentally friendly nature of the festival, festival-goers will also be given the option to buy a $5 tasting cup to sample tea, which will double as a souvenir.

Tea geeks will also be on their knees in gratitude when they sign up for a talk, tasting or demo held by some of Australia’s leading tea specialists. Workshops will cover a range of topics, such as tea basics and blending, tea ceremonies and tastings, tea and dessert pairing, tea and meditation and much more. 

Learn all about top-drawer teas and herbal tisanes at the Sydney Tea Festival.          Image: Supplied

This year, workshop sessions include Tea Leaf Reading with Annie O'Reilly, a Tea and Chocolate Pairing class with Koko Black Chocolate and The Rabbit Hole Organic Tea Bar, a bespoke chai blending class with Chai Walli Uppma Virdi and an Art of Tea Blending class with The Tea Atelier.

Organisers are expecting a crowd of about 5,000 to converge at Carriageworks for the Sydney Tea Festival. Image: Supplied

 If you have a taste for tea or want to learn more about the leafy brew, visit the Sydney Tea Festival website. Tea workshop tickets can be purchased in advance via Eventbrite. 

Cronulla joins the music festival circuit

The Brass Monkey will be in the spotlight during the inaugural Australian Music Week in Cronulla.

Cronulla will crank up the volume this summer when it presents the inaugural Australian Music Week and HiFi Days Festival from November 18-22. One of the organisers of the event, Geoff Trio, says the five-day festival will culminate in HiFi Days, which includes internationally renowned act UB40, as well as Australian acts The Bamboos (with Tim Rogers), Phil Jamieson (Grinspoon), The Snowdroppers, Caravana Sun and indie four-piece Fripps & Fripps.

UB40 headlines the bill at HiFi Festival, presented by the inaugural Australian Music Week in Cronulla. Image: Supplied

As the co-owner of two of the best live venues in the Shire - the Brass Monkey and El Sol - Trio has been instrumental in the growth of the Shire's live music scene. But despite his industry knowledge and connections through his role running a music label and touring company for local and international artists, Trio says the response he has received has still come as somewhat of a surprise.

"The response and support we have received has been overwhelming. We want this to be an annual event and the plans are to grow it every year and to eventually take it to the world stage and the feedback we have had has been so incredibly positive that we are confident we can achieve that," he says.

Trio believes Cronulla's chilled-out picturesque vibe of beach and bay will provide the perfect backdrop for a week of grooving in the sunshine, with up to 150 local and international artists appearing everywhere from the Brass Monkey, to the Sting Bar, JDs and El Sol as well as the centre mall stage and several cafes.
 

The stage will be set at El Sol to host a diverse range of acts during Australian Music Week. Photo: Carla Grossetti

Trio says the celebration of live music also doubles as a mega music industry conference designed to spark conversation and connections between everyone from industry executives and recording professionals to up-and-coming artists and music lovers.  

Do The Stomp with the Snowdroppers during Australian Music Week's presentation of HiFi Days.  Image: Supplied

As well as bringing together musos from a multitude of genres such as contemporary soul, rock, blues, indie, country and folk, there will be a series of interactive Q&As and workshops featuring speakers such as Andy Cassell, co-owner and founder of Winterman & Goldstein (Jett, Empire of the Sun, Something for Kate, The Preatures) and Chloe Goodyear, head of programming at the Woodford Folk Festival.

Sutherland Shire band Fripps & Fripps has been invited to perform during HiFi Days. Image: Supplied

Trio says artists are invited to showcase at Australian Music Week in front of some of Australia's most influential and successful agents, venue bookers, managers, labels. Applications close on August 14, 2015. All bands that apply to AMW will be able to opt in for automatic consideration for Captured: Australia, a short film festival pairing up eight emerging filmmakers with eight emerging artists. 

The event will also feature food stalls that have sprouted in the Shire with pop-up coffee bar from Grind Espresso, Arabian-inspired cuisine from Yalla Sawa and pizza from AVPN-accredited Queen Margherita of Savoy.

Phil Jamieson, who is a founding member of Grinspoon, and is now flying solo.

AUSTRALIAN MUSIC WEEK - November 18-22
Conference passes: 2 DAY Conference & 3 NIGHTS Showcases - $93.50 + booking fee
November 21 Saturday Youth Conference only - $34.50 + booking fee

GIG TICKETS
3 NIGHTS GIG TICKETS - $45 + BOOKING FEE
November 19-21

2 NIGHTS GIG TICKETS - $35 + BOOKING FEE
November 19-20, 20-21 or November 19 and November 21

1 NIGHT GIG TICKET - $20 + BOOKING FEE
Thursday, November 19
Friday November 20
Saturday November 21

GOLD PASS TICKET - costs $175 and includes full access to conferences on November 19 & 20, showcases November 19-21and general admission to HiFi Days November 22. Tickets on sale now from www.australianmusicweek.com For more information on Australia Music Week visit www.australianmusicweek.com
www.facebook.com/AustMusicWeek

HiFi DAYS
WHEN: Sunday November 22 from noon-8pm.
GETTING THERE: Gunnamatta Park is located 50m from Cronulla Train Station.
TICKETS: Adults: $89 plus booking fee; kids aged 3-13 $45; on sale through www.oztix.com.au
WEBSITE: www.hifidays.com and http://australianmusicweek.com