Work Archives - The Community Dietitian

THE MARKET KITCHEN

March 26, 2017 by Hannah Rohrlach

[Sadly, the Market Kitchen is no longer in existence due to the property becoming unavailable for future use]

Between 2015-2017, The Adelaide Central Market Kitchen was a buzzing food and education hub located on Level 1 of the Adelaide Central Market. For two years I worked part-time as the in-house dietitian for the Market Kitchen, owned and run by Mark Gleeson alongside his other award-winning food tourism business, Central Market Tours (now Food Tours Australia). I co-developed a delicious range of specialty tours, challenges, and educational food & nutrition activities for schools, corporate groups and the public. Some of the products I worked on and delivered during this time are described below.

Interactive school tours of the Adelaide Central Market are still available through Food Tours Australia. Unfortunately the cooking experiences are currently unavailable.

HEALTH & NUTRITION EDUCATION

For school groups, we covered the Health and Physical Education area of the National Curriculum, adapted to each year level. Excursion packages included a tour of the market accompanied by cooking activities in the kitchen. Topics covered included the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, nutritional differences in the core food groups (including tastings on tour), and where to find reliable nutrition information. Depending on year level, other areas covered include:

Comparisons of mass-produced and artisan products with tastings
The food system & where our food comes from; social & economic factors to consider when buying food
Environmentally sustainable food
Recommended portion and serving sizes
Benefits of eating local and seasonal
A mindful eating exercise
A healthy food cooking demonstration
Putting together a healthy lunchbox activity
Food fads & diets

For international students, we provided orientation tours of the markets includes an introduction to nutrition, common Australian foods and cooking styles. We cover the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating and local examples, where to find cheap produce, and make suggestions for quick, cheap & healthy meals. This tour additionally provided participants with some recipes & basic meal starter pack.

For corporate groups, we delivered a ‘hot topics’ tour with tastings, and team-building cooking activities. Topics can include where to find reliable nutrition information, comparisons of mass-produced and artisan produce, key nutrients for physical and mental health, mindful eating, food for longevity, debunking diets and sustainable food. Cooking activities varies depending on each group’s needs, but can include a ‘shop & gather’ or ‘ready-to-go’ cook-off. For a more high intensity team-building activity, the Market Challenge was not to be overlooked!

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE EXCURSION

We designed an interactive school excursion exploring the “past, present, future” concept in Australia explored through food. This began with a 30-minute guided tour of the market focusing on the variety of foods available, the various cultures represented – why they came here and when, nutrition, and sustainability. This was followed by a cook-off, with three teams preparing a different dish using the same basic ingredients; the first team prepares food as it would have been made in the past, the second team uses today’s trends in food preparation, and the third prepares a dish as it may be prepared in the future. Students all had an opportunity to taste food from the different eras, and as a group discussed the differences with regards to health, nutrition and sustainability. This tour encompassed some of the HASS, Health and Physical Education, Design and Technology and sustainability aspects of the curriculum across all year levels.

SUSTAINABILITY TOURS

For schools, this tour was aimed at all year levels to cover the cross-curricular priority of sustainability. We showed students a sustainable kitchen in action, taught waste management, and discussed the importance of thinking globally/acting locally including carbon footprints and food miles. Their tour included a brief history of the market, a look at sustainability within the market place and some taste comparisons of mass-produced vs. artisan-produced items such as bread, cheese and tomatoes.

MULTICULTURAL TOURS

This flexible tour covered the history of cultural influence in South Australia with tastings from numerous cuisines found throughout the market. We introduced guests to various stallholders who were born overseas to share their stories firsthand about moving to Australia and the influence of food on their culture.

NUTRITION WRITER, ALIMENTARIUM MAGAZINE

January 17, 2017 by Hannah Rohrlach

The Alimentarium is the world’s first food and nutrition museum, located in Vevey, Switzerland.

“For over 30 years, the world’s first-ever food-themed museum has been sharing a global and independent view of the many aspects of the human diet. Its multidisciplinary, cultural, historical, scientific and nutritional-focused approach and its bold and original programme of activities have established the Alimentarium as a reference on food.”

Following a visit to the museum in late 2016, I have started as a nutrition writer for their online magazine. My expertise is in translating the science into simple, understandable and practical ideas that everyone can take on board to improve their health.

My articles have been translated in French and German.

You can read my current content here and keep an eye out for more to be published later in the year.

One of the rooms in The Food Sector of the museum

Entering the Body Sector floor of the museum

POST DINING

January 11, 2017 by Hannah Rohrlach

Dining reimagined.

Post Dining is a creative food venture launched at the Adelaide Fringe 2016. It is a place where food meets event, artists meet their audience and diners can expect a curiously delightful culinary experience.

We have carefully crafted food experiences to share our adoration for Adelaide, Australian native flavours and novel ingredients, as well as to support local food producers and up and coming performers and musicians. Post Dining caters to your tastes, your desires, your intellect and your innate sense of curiosity.

Post Dining interactively explores the relationships between people, food, senses, and the dining table, playing on the audience’s sensual perception and sense-of-self. Guided by servers/performers within a constructed space, with live music or artistic responses during each night, it is a unique way to experience both food and theatre. Our intention is always to create a delightfully playful and surprising space where audiences begin to expect the unexpected.

With a strong emphasis on native flavours and seasonal produce, Post Dining is a chance for locals to experience and discover the food of the city in a new way. For visitors, it offers an insight both into South Australia’s celebrated food and experimental arts cultures. Expect anything from edible insects to edible flowers, native plants and edible weeds.

Food is a creative tool and a universal symbol of connection. We use food to facilitate authentic participation from the audience – mediated, but never controlled, by us. Through additional layers of play and mystery, we encourage participants to consider what they consume on a new level; food as colour, food as a tactile or social experience, food as curation, food as performance, food as art.

A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

My co-producer in this project is the talented Stephanie Daughtry. Working extensively as project manager for independent cultural projects, Steph has a particular interest in innovative audience engagement. She likes to redefine space, and the scope of personal interaction within these spaces, through creating experimental work fuelled by cross-disciplinary collaboration. Steph merges professional experience within major arts festivals, with an initiative to drive personal collaborative projects. With a varied background in theatre, curation, and community development, she loves to continuously deliver refreshing ideas that enhance personal experiences within the CBD.

post-dining.com.au
postdining.experiments@gmail.com

FOOD TOURS AUSTRALIA

January 10, 2017 by Hannah Rohrlach

The Adelaide Central Market is the place to learn about food and nutrition in a fun, interactive & sensory environment! It’s the original home of Food Tours Australia (formerly Central Market Tours), started in 2003 by food entrepreneur and chef Mark Gleeson.

Since 2014 I have worked as a tour guide in Mark Gleeson’s award-winning food tourism business. During this time I co-developed a delicious range of specialty tours, challenges and educational food & nutrition activities for schools, corporate groups and the public which you can find more about here.

I have also designed and run a number of training courses for new tour guides.

For a complete listing of current food tourism experiences, check out the Food Tours Australia website.

ADELAIDE CENTRAL MAKRET TOURS

ADELAIDE SHOWGROUNDS FARMERS MARKET TOURS

HEALTH & NUTRITION TOURS

SUSTAINABILITY TOURS

MULTICULTURAL FOOD TOURS

EXPERIENCES AROUND ADELAIDE, INTERSTATE AND OVERSEAS

ADELAIDE CENTRAL MARKET CHALLENGE

January 9, 2017 by Hannah Rohrlach

Think you know food? Question your palate, master your intellect and test your agility in this high-intensity sensory skirmish designed for both the young, and the wise. Prove your culinary know-how in the Adelaide Central Market Challenge and cement your place in gastronomic history! Expect blind tastings, food preparations, and a cryptic treasure hunt around the city’s world-famous market – all in 60 minutes! BYO running shoes.

I joined the Food Tours Australia (Formerly Central Market Tours) as the host of the Adelaide Central Market Challenge for the 2014 Adelaide Fringe debut. Since it’s launch, we’ve built new and improved challenges for corporate groups and schools, ready to test every ounce of your food knowledge and culinary skills! Racing against other teams and the clock, Market Challenge is also a strategic orienteering task and not for the faint hearted.

“Move Over Hunger Games” {The Advertiser}, “So much fun”{Adelaide Food and Wine Festival}

We host public, private and corporate Challenges. An example of a large corporate event was the tailored Market Challenge organised for Thermomix Australia and New Zealand as their national conference in 2015. We hosted 60 branch managers for a two part team building Market Challenge and Thermomix Cook-off.

“The team market challenge held for Thermomix in Australia and New Zealand leaders was fun and engaging. The experience delighted everyone and is rated as one of the best team challenges they have done. Thanks to the Central Market Kitchen for an amazing day!”

Up for the Challenge? Book yourselves in! cheryl@ausfoodtours.com

FAMILY, FOOD & FUN

August 21, 2016 by Hannah Rohrlach

In 2016-2017 in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, Marion Uniting Church in collaboration with Flinders University and Uniting Care Wesley Bowden (Community Foodies) ran four repeats of a six week Healthy Eating programs for families with pre-school aged children. In collaboration with a Community Development Worker and Community Foodies, the sessions included separate and combined activities for parents/carers and children.

A range of topics were covered across the programs including dealing with fussy eaters, how to get kids eating more veggies, appropriate portion sizes, children’s changing requirements, healthy breakfasts, snacks and drinks, and how to deal with marketing/peer pressure on food choice. Sessions involved discussion, presentation and a hands on food-prep session, providing a meal for everyone at the end of each week.

Children were guided through food play activities and taught the ‘Eat A Rainbow‘ principle, being exposed to different coloured fruits and veggies over the program with the opportunity to see, smell, touch and taste a range of new foods.

Upon conclusion of our funding grant from Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, ownership of the ‘Family, Food and Fun’ program has been handed over to Uniting Care Wesley Bowden. Contact carolyn.dent@ucwb.org.au if you are interested in hosting a program.

For more information about feeding children visit www.raisingchildren.net.au

CHRISTIE WALK TOURS

June 9, 2016 by Hannah Rohrlach

I have recently joined the wonderful community at Urban Ecology Australia (UEA) as a Christie Walk tour guide.

What Is Christie Walk?

(Words from UEA) In the heart of the city of Adelaide there is a small ‘urban village’ of 27 homes and gardens on 2,000 sq m (half an acre). It was named Christie Walk to honour the memory of Scott Christie, an environmental activist. The development combines many ecologically sustainable and community enhancing features.

It was initiated by UEA in 1999 as a demonstration project to promote nature and people friendly urban development by example, and was completed in December 2006. The goal was to create a liveable, affordable and environmentally benign urban community that provides a practical prototype for the ecological development of our cities.

The project consists of 27 dwellings which include linked four three-storey townhouses with full solar orientation, a three storey block of six apartments with east-west orientation, four individual cottages, and a 5 storey apartment block facing onto Sturt Street, with a community room/ kitchen/dining/meeting room/ library, and toilets on the ground floor. Around 40 people live at Christie Walk, ranging in age from very young to over 80 with a strong ethos of ’community’ which has developed over the past ten years.

This big picture of global thinking is realised in many details ranging from the capture of stormwater to the use of solar electricity and recycled and non-toxic building materials. The community aspect is important in a couple of ways. On the one hand, in the finished development the architecture and urban design fosters social interaction and a sense of community by providing a layout that is both free from traffic and provides a number of convivial outdoor places to gather informally or to sit quietly alone. On the other hand, the fact that Christie Walk exists at all is due to the power of community activism and the commitment of individual Australians prepared to work together to achieve something out of the ordinary.

The building of Christie Walk was based on the following Environmental Performance Criteria:

Criterion 1. Energy. Both in construction and in its on-going life, to be a low energy demand environment and, within that, to maximise the use of renewable/solar-based energy sources and minimise the use of non-renewable energy sources.

Criterion 2. Water. Both in construction and in its on-going life, to maximise on-site both the retention and usage of storm water, and the retention and recycling of waste water.

Criterion 3. Land. To service the bringing of land, both in the location of the development and in associated rural location/s, into a state of ecological health, by adopting programs of ecological restoration and land management practices which may include appropriate organic agricultural production and which maximise achievement of biodiversity of indigenous flora and fauna.

Criterion 4. Health. Both in construction and in its on-going life, to avoid the use of products or processes which incorporate materials or produce substances or by-products which are known to be damaging to human health.

Criterion 5. Pollution. Both in construction and in its on-going life, to minimise or prevent the dispersion into the environment, either within or beyond the location of the development, of non-recyclable materials or materials which otherwise have detrimental environmental effects.

Guided Tours

Tours of Christie Walk provide inspiration and practical examples of a more sustainable way of living with messages for a wide range of people:

primary, secondary and tertiary students,
home renovators or those planning to buy a home
architects, builders, city planners,
workplace and community groups and
anyone with an interest in community and the interaction of natural and built environments.

Find out more. Bookings essential:

Ph: (08) 8212 6760
Email: urbanec@urbanecology.org.au

Featured image from urbanecoloy.org.au

OLIVER SOCIAL

June 9, 2016 by Hannah Rohrlach

Oliver Social (formerly Oliver Community Dinners) was a grassroots initiative co-founded by a small group of friends living in the Adelaide CBD in 2012. In our fairly quiet and settled city, it’s not always easy to meet new people. Our goal was to create opportunity for building community through social connection and food.

How it started

It began with four housemates hosting an open-invite community dinner each week in our home. Open to old friends, new friends, travellers we’d meet, new people to town, or anyone else we crossed paths with during the week. The culture we strive for is welcoming, open, honest and generous. 15 months later we had attracted a strong core community, and the structure changed so that dinners now rotated between houses and hosts each week, in or near the city. Between October 2012 and October 2016, dinners were held consistently every week. In 2017, we reduced the frequency of gatherings to monthly due to changing need in the community.

How it worked

A Facebook platform kept everyone in the loop with who was hosting. To ensure sustainability, everyone contributed $5 towards each meal, plus an optional drink to share. Everyone contributes in this kind of space – the host doesn’t do the dishes and isn’t left out of pocket.

After five years in December 2017, regular dinners came to a finale to make way for more spontaneous, ad-hoc gatherings.

Oliver Social is not an ‘official’ organisation. It is a community-driven network that works because lots of people contribute, lots of people benefit, and lots of people want it to grow. It is self-funding and not led by any one person.

Like this idea?

While we don’t publish the details of Oliver Social dinners publicly (to privacy of the hosts and community members), if you are interested then please contact me and I’d love chat with you about how you could start something similar. We reckon this model is something you could replicate in any city or suburb with a small number of people committed to get it started.

FOOD SYSTEM MATTERS RESEARCH PROJECT

February 22, 2016 by Hannah Rohrlach

A Flinders University Research Project

Food System Matters was a research project led by Associate Professor Kaye Mehta from Flinders University Nutrition & Dietetics, exploring food system literacy and it’s impact on food choice behaviour. Other members of the research team include Professor John Coveney, Professor Paul Ward, Dr Sue Booth and Dr Richard Woodman. The results of this project have been submitted for publication.

This research project was been approved by the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee.

Please direct any enquiries related to this project to hannah.rohrlach@flinders.edu.au

MARKET MEALS

February 22, 2016 by Hannah Rohrlach

UPDATE: Market Meals has now evolved into Nagev, a popular little plant-based cafe run by Lucie, Nissa and Ryan, located in Payneham, Adelaide.

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Ethical Eats. Deliciously Convenient.

Market Meals is a small business startup offering the people of Adelaide a new way to eat well. Fresh food delivered to you, packed full of flavour, colour, and love!

We believe healthy eating should be delicious and convenient. Market Meals have a variety of hearty salads, unique sweets and cold press juices ready to reach your lips. We use wholesome and seasonal ingredients sourced directly from the Adelaide Central Market.

Order online or over the phone and have your fresh, healthy food delivered directly to you. Our pedal power reaches across the CBD and North Adelaide, and will be extending soon.

The Market Meals team consists of 5 locals who love food, love the markets and love Adelaide: Ryan – the brains, Lucie – the chef, Hannah – the dietitian, Steph – the wordsmith and Nissa – the baking guru.