A Beauty-Full Evening at the Balmoral Boatshed Beauty Food Bar. Part 1

October 1, 2014

This unique and fabulous class was held as part of the SMH Good Food Month Festival in 2o13 & will be 'made-over' on the 28th & 29th October 2014. At luk our belief is that you can "eat yourself beautiful' and BEAUTY is far more than just looks, and FOOD is far more than just taste. At this event we wanted to inspire and educate women on the beauty in food and to offer simple ways for them to live a more balanced, healthy and nourished LIFE.

So how did the idea of being part of Good Food Month evolve into a Beauty Food Bar at Balmoral Boatshed where we learnt to eat for beauty, pleasure and nourishment? There are so many important dynamics about food to consider. Good food has always been about enjoyment but now its gone beyond taste and sharing. It's gone beyond health and pure nutrition. Pleasure can now stem from the intrinsic beauty and nourishment food provides. Take the creamy deliciousness of that freshly cold-pressed activated almond milk, pear and ginger milk. At one level there is gratification, but at another there is a whole other ballpark of satisfaction: the awareness of the wrinkle-fighting antioxidants, the natural compounds neutralising those free radicals in the vitamin C of the whole lemon and the vitamin E restoring moisture and elasticity to your skin. And instead of perceiving nutrition as an uptight and regimented task, we need to know how to have fun with food. It’s not about calculating and quantifying to the nutritional gram; it’s about carefree experimentation of taste, colour and texture of whole food. We need to change the perspective of †˜healthy eating’ from a restrictive, structured diet to a light-hearted and enjoyable task of nourishing your body. Food is pleasurable; food is beautiful; food is sexy! Taste. Health. Beauty. Pleasure. My message was simple; enjoy the taste of delicious food, enjoy the health and beauty benefits and, most importantly, enjoy the delicious results of feeling and looking beautiful from the inside out....and KNOW HOW TO ORGANISE YOURSELF TO LIVE IT ! So, I approached friend and guru nutritionist, corporate wellness speaker and author Michele Chevalley Hedge of A Healthy View (who's book Beating Sugar Addictions is launching Nov 15th) with a loose idea of walking and talking our way thru a display of beautiful food to 'eat yourself beautiful'. She talks evidence based nutrition and I cook and share beauty food tips and tricks. Michele was instantly on board, we have wanted to do something together for a long time. With our combined expertise we got to planning our night of education and inspiration to be held at the stunning location of the Balmoral Boatshed. Despite the already gorgeous interior of the venue it still took a good couple hours to turn the Boatshed into the Beauty Food Bar. With Michele directing the space, lük designer Melanie Aussel set up the beauty food display and with the help of my hardworking friend and chef extraordinaire Jo and fabulous interns Aimee and Lucy we nailed the food and setup. The buying, prep and cooking took days - I had forgotten how hard catering is so there will not be many of these extraordinaire events!! The long rustic wooden tables made for a fantastic food display and the bait freezers became my workbench for the cooking. The Beauty Food Bar looked out across the tables and chairs set up for the 45 guests and the beautiful water of Balmoral Beach - what a backdrop! The sound of the waves under our feet challenged our conversation but once the door was closed it became easier to hear the facts. Placed in the centre of each guest table was a single glass jar filled with a lük signature posy (kale and herbs straight from my kitchen garden!) and an edible centrepiece made up of a bright array of raw veggies and gourmet crackers on a wooden board. A single candle provided a pretty touch, casting a delicate light across the leafy greens and the colourful food. Atop each chair sat a gift bag containing a makeover pantry list, (sorry monday nighters - it went astray but here is the link...scroll to bottom of that page for download) a beauty benefits table, recipes for all the dishes being made, a selection of Beautifood Bites, offers for Michele’s nutritional services and of course a Lip Nourish! Also, the first platter of the evening, the Colour-Me-Beautiful dips, sat temptingly on each table. With such vibrant colours it could have been a centrepiece in itself! The platter included the Red dip (red capsicum and cashews), the Purple One (beetroot, pumpkin and walnuts) monday night there was a Green Goddess (avocado, 5 greens and ground seeds) and a White hummus made up with calcium rich unhulled sesame seeds and topped with a colourful sprinkling of pomegranate seeds. As guests arrived they were welcomed by the lovely Lucy with a beauty full antioxidant rich (eat those wrinkles away) mocktail made up of pomegranate juice, cranberry, elderberry flower, mint, orange rind and a dash of maple syrup for an extra hit of natural sweetness. Seated around the outside tables of the Boatshed, guests sipped away as they overlooked the stunning view of Balmoral Bay immersed in the glowing pink light of the springtime sunset. As seven o’clock rolled around guests came to take their place inside at the tables where they helped themselves to sparkling Pellegrino and sauvignon blanc (there is always room for a little indulgence in our beauty food philosophy!). After a quick welcome and introduction of ourselves and the evening ahead we were off and into full swing of the event! Michele got straight into talking nutrition, confidently and wittily delivering and discussing information to the ready audience. Some of her main focuses included:

The severe lack of consideration of and attention paid to proper nutrition
The effect of food on your mood, skin and energy
The science behind nourishing yourself.
Wholefood
How we shouldn’t be afraid of fats
The importance of lessening your sugar intake and the effect of AGES!

She also discussed the best and worst of all the major food groups, snacks, oils, and alcohols for nourishing yourself beautiful. She also provided the how-to on cooking with certain produce and products and added a personal touch by offering many of her own favourite foods and recipes along the way. In part 2 of this blog series we will cover the content in more detail. While Michele spoke I prepared ingredients and cooked. I explained the methods to making the recipes and discussing the nutritional content and beauty benefits of each of the ingredients as I chopped and quickly whizzed them up on my favourite tools (see my guide to juicing & smoothies or kitchen tools for healthy living) a super powerful Vitamix blender, Kuving's Silent Juicer (cold pressed) & a fabulous red Kitchen Aid processor from the Artisan collection. The dishes and drinks of the evening included:

Warm olives with almonds, paprika and rosemary
Colour Me Beautiful Dips: Red, Green, Purple & White
2 minute Aromatic Asian soup quickly and efficiently whipped up in the Vitamix
Buckwheat pancakes with fresh salmon, Green Goddess dip and chives
Almond milk
Super Skin Milk - almond, pear and ginger milk
Chia seed puddings
Glow & Go Green Smoothie
Glow Balls (Michele’s daughter’s skin-delicious recipe!)
Seed topped crackers

Where there are no links to recipes I will endeavour to write these up soon and can let you know via my newsletter "bites of delicious beauty' or the lük facebook page. I am also going to do a post on crackers - to make and what to buy. On my site there are lots of posts on how to organise yourself in the kitchen - here is one from last year on 'reverse menu planning' or look at the pages under FOOD/ beauty kitchen on the mega menu off the blackboard on the left hand side of the page. By the end of the event we had gently filled everyone’s body with delicious and nutritious food and everyone’s head with important and beneficial information. So many beauty-full bodies and minds in one room! What needs to happen now is for every one to action what they learnt. A good place to start is by enrolling in one of Michele's Cleanse class (Feb 2014 open now) or retreats that she runs throughout the year. Click here. I will pop my classes up for next year soon. See here for events. And, in part 2 of this blog series we will cover the content in more detail. After the success of the Beauty Food Bar Michele and I will team up again for future beauty food events in 2014, so watch this space! For more on the evening, you may like to read these posts written by bloggers that joined us: Veggies & Me Women in Focus Lululemon We'd love you to write a comment and let us know what you thought. And stay tuned for part 2 on what was said. 20/10/14 : TICKETS FOR 2014 CAN BE PURCHASED HERE. be delicious.... inside and out!