Halfway through…
Big sleep in – read my fantastic kids book ‘Little Fur’ by amazing author Isobel Carmody. She’s a local Geelong girl. Wonderful read. Recommend it for anyone thinking about their connection with the earth and how we make a difference.
Someone’s laying again out the back, so it’s home-laid egg on home-made bread for brunch.
Then trip to the market to replace the New Zealand cheese which is in our fridge and has driven me crazy over the past days… as it creeps out and is devoured by our children. “But it tastes so creamy dad…”
The irony is that we have much cheese in the fridge which has been made the previous week by Janet and myself. Fetta, Halomi and Ricotta. However I am buying Monzeralla, made by Alba Cheese company in Brunswick (9kms) today. It will fill the need and serve for my grand plans for dinner.
Other purchases were:
Bread from Andrews Sourdough Laverton (14kms), Pumpkin, from Griffith NSW (likely to be from Moratis, 461kms), onions from ‘Just Onions’ from breakwater Geelong (71kms); and broccoli from Werribee (25kms).
I have entitled dinner as ‘The Beast’. This giant marrow has been lurking in our front garden for some time. Filled with cheese, breadcrumbs, pasta sauce, olives and sundried tomatoes, it’s a feast to be remembered. Yes, the kids even ate it.
The breadcrumbs we made from frozen bread crusts, previously collected from the school cafeteria, which when thawed were then wizzed in the food processor (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s idea). Pasta sauce made by Janet from tomatoes, onion, capsicum and fresh herbs from our garden, then bottled. Olives from Mt Zero, Laharum , VIC (286kms); Sundried tomatoes dried on our shed roof in my solar contraption.
Finished the night with a trip to Lentil as Anything to catchup with a friend. Lentil is a great place for the food but also the philosophy. You ‘pay as you feel’, which puts a whole different emphasis on the value of food. This of course could be good or bad, depending on the value given. Anyway, choices were limited and I went with a soy chai – definitely stretching the definition of local. Spices are from around the globe. I did enquire about the soy milk and found they use Vita-soy which is labeled “Made in Australia”. It’s also labelled ‘made from organic soybeans’, but has no indication of a certification for this organic claim. For those interested, the Japanese parent company, Kirin Holdings, receive a light criticism in the Shop Ethical consumer guide. Subsidiary Lion supply about 80% of products to major supermarkets.
Well, I actually finished the night writing this blog … seems ridiculously late to be doing such things. …
ps. I’ve just realised that I had a very similar post on big marrows during last year’s challenge too. Gotta learn to pick’m earlier!