Kitchen Garden Guides

Sunday, October 26, 2008

ALMOST HOME.....VEERING VIA VICTORIA

image Now I am in Melbourne, Victoria and had a great flat white coffee this morning at The Convent Farmers' Market! It is located in an inner suburb but it is hard to believe when you look around and see nothing but bushland and the Yarra River... see the photos.

 

 

 

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I enjoyed talking to the bloke from "Native Oz Cuisine" who sells several bushfoods, including my favourite, Bush Tomatoes. We bought some of his "Strawberry-gum infused pannacotta" which means a type of lovely, thick creme caramel kind of thing, infused with the amazing aroma of the strawberry gumtree leaf. His wife is aboriginal and together they have the only bushfoods company owned by Aboriginal people.

 

There was an Australian coffee stall selling coffee grown and roasted in Australia.....check out the website "Eureka Coffee".

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Jack bought a kilogram bag of organic asparagus seconds for $4.... who says organic is expensive? When in season it should be easy to find bargains like this! image

Here is a photo of coriander with its roots and stems on,  as I was describing to various people on my trip....it is always sold this way here, and you use the roots and stems in the cooking then add the chopped leaves only at the end. This is often used in Thai cooking.

 

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We had breakfast at Lentil as Anything...a vegetarian cafe where you just pay what you think the food is worth by putting some money in a jar as you leave. They serve mostly organic food and employ refugees or disadvantaged people and now have 4 cafes in Melbourne so obviously they are doing something right. They also often have live music, featuring refugees such as African drummers etc.

 

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I love the rusty steel cut-outs of typical Australian farm dogs which lead you along a path to the community garden and the Collingwood Children's Farm, from the Farmers' Market...

 

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.....and the wonderful decorations on the boardwalk...

 

 

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On the way home Jack insisted we drop into the "Pure Bread" bakery, whose selection of patisserie equalled most I saw in France! 

 

 

 

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Much later we went out for dinner to a Middle Eastern restaurant called ZumZum and finished our absolutely fantastic dinner with Mahalabia...... which was these soft, nut-flavoured threads on top of a delicate, rosewater and nut infused custard..... well, somebody has to do the research!!

 

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4 comments:

chaiselongue said...

Melbourne looks like a great place for food, Kate! Glad you've found a flat white at last. We used to buy coriander as you describe with roots and stems in the Indian and Pakistani shops in Cowley Road in Oxford ... I expect they're still there although it's 25 years since I lived there. It's a much better way of buying it than the limp leaves you find in other places. And when we've grown it we've always found it goes to seed very quickly.
Enjoy the last lap of your trip!

Maggie said...

Hi Kate
Melbourne is the best place for food.
You must go to Ceres on Sunday. Ceres has organic veggie plots.
And then there is a community at St Kilda.
VegieStock - Veg Out Open Day 10th Anniversary Fair
Sunday 26th October, 2008
11am - 5pm
This year's Veg Out Open Day is a special one - it's our 10th anniversary and we have a spectacular day planned - laughing clowns, fairy floss, a high striker and a dunking machine, facepainting and more. The gardens will be decorated with unusual sculptures as part of our sculpture competition, the bar and chai tent will be open and the barbecue cookin', and our fabulous clay pizza oven will produce great crispy pizza.
Children's band The Kazoos will be performing at 12pm midday, and there will be a Fancy Dress Parade at 12.30. Then local band Sub-Urbans will play from 1.30pm, so kick back on the lawn with a glass of vino and and enjoy the afternoon. And our New Gates will be officially 'opened' at 3pm.
NOW the best COFFEE AND CAKE in the whole world is at BRUNETTES off LYGON ST.
And BROWNES have great choc meringue cakes and ham baguettes.
AND, AND AND.
HI ROGER. Maggie and Bob.
We are just going to Sunningdale Farm.
Best go water before we go.

Sally Forth said...

How lovely that you are able to enjoy the wonderful things about Melbourne! we love Lentil as Anything too.

Garden4Life said...

Your blog is amazing. It's nice to see that the message of being better stewards of our land travel around the world. :)