On saturday i woke up nice and early, to indulge in my secret affair - kids cartoons with an endless chain of coffees lined up for the morning. seriously. yes, i'm serious. it's the best way to start a saturday, and a ritual that i have been following since i was a kid (well, maybe except for the coffee). actually, come to think of it, except for the cartoons too - when i was younger, i used to love playing hockey. something about holding, no - wielding a hockey stick that made me love the role of aggressor. i even have the stitches to prove it. luckily, as i grew up, i ended up with more kitchen related injuries than hockey, so i guess it all evened out.
ok, i gotta be honest, there WILL be segues as i get all nostalgic, and have to wipe a tear out of my eye. kidding - it's sleep crusties...
anyway, back to the topic at hand. on saturday, i cut my ritual short (well, if you call 3 coffees and 3 cartoons "short") to head to the collingwood farmer's market http://www.mfm.com.au
i'm not sure if you know, but it is held at the collingwood children's farm, close to me in collinwood (obviously). lucky for me - i'm still a stubborn little child that has no interest in getting a licence so i still use public transport to get around. i'd like to say i am taking the green approach, and trying to reduce carbon emissions, be carbon neutral, and all that jazz, but the truth is i'm just bone lazy.
First stop: olive oil. for some reason this is the first thing that i run out of in my larder. normally i use the cobram one that you get in supermarkets, but i thought i'd try something different. note the DEEP DARK green of the oil on the far left hand - this was a first press of the season, and was very strong, too strong for me! (the one on the far right is the same first press, but aged for a bit). the third from the left was a "third press", and really, i tasted a lot of oil, but not much of the flavours i expect out of my olive oil, possibly good for cooking, but not things like guacamole, etc. the one in the middle, however, was just right. (this is very goldy locks, isn't it...) anyway, i could be a prat and say what i thought it tasted like, but let's just leave it at "olive oil" and move on, shall we?
next up are felafels. yeah, i'm a sucker for them. i have an older sister that used to be a hippie, complete with tie dye clothing, and a vegan lifestyle, before it was cool to do that. she got me hooked on them. these were quite nice (most importantly not dry and hard enough to use for squash), so i got some to eat as a snack with friends. i'm not sure what is traditionaly served with them, but i'm going for a mint yoghurt dip. we'll see how that holds up...
and now we get to the good stuff! this is where i get to mix two of my pleasures at the same time, alcohol and organic produce. i was almost going to skip this stand due my to new year's eve limoncello incident (i laced a friend's punch with limoncello and african cane spirit), but try as i might, i couldn't pass up the opportunity for a free sample.the limoncello they served was chilled with ice, so as i poured half the cup down my throat, it had a lovely soothing effect ... right up until the alcohol kicked in and tore my throat apart. coughing, i asked the girl was the alcohol content was and was told it was 23-25 percent, but she brightly said i could freeze it. now i'm no scientist, but i thought that the alcohol content had to be higher to freeze? either way, i bought some to investigate. next time i'll be back for the blueberry licqeur though, it looked like a good idea for summer (i doubt it will last til then, but we can hope) on the safe side, i might put it in my flatmates freezer, just in case...
Of course, no trip to the farmer's market would be complete without organic vegetables. luckily for me, i can bypass these stands - i have a loving mother that has a farm in the country (bendigo), so i get an endless supply of organic vegies and huuuuge eggs. let's move right on:ok, i'm having trouble uploading pics. i'll cap it off here for now, but will update this tomorrow (hopefully).
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