Monday, May 18, 2015

This week's compost



Had a splendid time doing brekkies for choristers over the weekend at Stroud. Found the triffic Two Men and a Pumpkin Farmgate which runs on Saturdays at Stroud Road (no, that’s NOT a road in Stroud but the next town up toward Gloucester so named, I think , cause that’s where the railway station is for the area). Loved the produce I grabbed for our last brekkie, a sample of which is my pic for this week. I mean, how fab to find somewhere away from the Big Smoke that grows turmeric, lemon grass, and – wonder of wonders – arrowroot!. Check out their FB page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Two-Men-and-a-Pumpkin-Farmgate-Roadside-Stall/220948054776161?fref=ts and you can check out Limestone Permaculture, one of the two men at https://www.facebook.com/LimestonePermaculture

Week of Tastes
The indefatigable Helen Campbell is again running the Week of Tastes this year and needs taste presenters for some schools who want to be involved. They can be chef, baker, pastry, cheesemaker, providore, etc as long as they work with a quality product. There are Sydney schools and regional NSW schools. Allons! Below is a list that she would love to fill so if you have any suggestions, please get in touché avec ella (or something Francais like that J The numbers after the names are how many presenters I need. I myself have put my hand up to bring spice knowledge to the darlings of Darlington. I did it a couple of years ago and it was triff J

1.      Boggabri (halfway between Narrabri and Gunnedah).. 1
2.      Booligal (80 km north Hay)… 1
3.      Cudgen ( just near Kingscliff)…1
4.      Dubbo West..2
5.      Junee North… 1
6.      Kentlyn (near Campbelltown)… 1
7.      Kinchela (between Kempsey and South West Rocks)… 2
8.      Medlow (Taylors Arm, 40 km from Macksville)…. 1
9.      Niangala (75 km from Tamworth, 75 km from Walcha)…. 1
10.  Chisholm ( just east of Maitland) I think I have Morpeth Bakery for this.
11.  Tuntable Creek (just out of Nimbin) … 1
12.  Wellington (50km SE of Dubbo)….  2
13.  Wilcannia… 1

And within Sydney:
1.      Bligh Park – 8 classes, so I will need 4 people! Just near Windsor
2.      Lalor Park (Blacktown)… 2
3.      Kingsgrove… 1
4.      Parramatta West… 2
5.      Wheelers Heights… 2
6.      Allambie Heights… 1
7.      Mount Pritchard (near Liverpool) … 3
8.      Padstow… 2
9.      Werrington County (Penrith) … 2

Helen can be contacted via Helen Campbell [hcampbel@ihug.com.au]

Why recipe less cooking is the next big thing
Everyone’s grandma did it, and now chefs are encouraging a new generation to do it. They want you to cook without a recipe.’

Except they don’t. The links to the pot roast and the soup will take you to pages where  - surprise surprise – you get narratives that tell you what to use and how to use them. Now call me pedantic, but that’s a recipe as far as I’m concerned. Sure, it doesn’t have ingredient in a list with specific quantities – except in the pot roast not-a-recipe you do get told how much of a couple of things you need. But as we know quantifying like this is a relatively recent approach developed to fill a very specific need. Interestingly most of the comments are very much along the lines of OFFS and some are hilarious: I particularly liked ‘Didn't Nostradamus have people cooking without recipes as one of the signs of the end of the world?’.



An Illustrated Field Guide to Modern Day Foodies (from Colin Sheringham)


It being US I don’t get all the references but I recognise several local varieties of the species.

How can we get street food back onto the streets ?
‘The principle that, in order to thrive, street-food traders need to work together to attract a crowd, is well established. Any romantic notion foodies may once have had about seeing lone food vans operating across our cities, offering a cheap, colourful alternative to the high street, remains a distant dream. Instead, the scene is all about collective action.’

I think this article misses the real obstacles entirely as to why street food will never have the presence in Australia that people romanticise for it and those are hygiene legislation driven by fear of litigation and fanned by cultural and class prejudices.



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