FOOD SAFARI INSPIRES A FESTIVAL FOR BLOGGERS

"Not another TV show", you are saying and I reply "Yes! Wonderful, exotic food cooked by wonderful exotic people - but right here in Australia."

Food Safari is on SBS at 7.30 Wednesdays.

I have only seen a couple of them so far but I am so drawn in by the visits to real homes, in Australia, of people who are really passionate about the food from their country of origin. Some of the recipes are available on the website, but you have to watch it to absorb the culture and I am sure you will be able to smell the spices, as I felt I could. I wish I had seen all of them, but the last one - Moroccan food - is still wafting about in my head.

I think, if I had to choose a food-culture, Morocco would be up there with the middle-east, closely followed by the rest of the Mediterranean region, from southern France to Greece and the whole of the north coast of the African continent. These people understand food and eating and sharing the love they put into the cooking with friends and family.

When it is 40 degrees outside today here, with no relief in sight, it is hard to imagine enjoying a spicy tagine, so today is a kind of Greek salad day, with marinated octopus or mussels in white wine and tomatoes . Followed by slices of chilled mango, straight off my mother's tree (via the fridge). In fact those mangoes that I just picked at her house this afternoon were so hot it is hard to believe they are not cooked on the tree! However, that heat has intensified the flavour unbelievably.....you should be here! I can't imagine anything better than sharing my love of growing food and picking it and cooking it with a tribe of hungry bloggers from all over the world ! Maybe one day we will have "The Festival Of Food-Growing Bloggers" right here in Adelaide, where the ingredients are so local and so good and you can get everything you need to produce any meal in the world, within 15 minutes of my house!

The mango in this picture, that I photographed a few weeks ago, ripened a few days ago and was taken by my brother who happened to visit my mother on the right day! Don't despair - I have anther 20 in my fridge that are nearly as big, apart from those I have given away. Call in some time soon and you can have one yourself.

I got so hungry writing this post that I had to go and get some thing to eat! I chose to toast some of Paolo's olive and rosemary sourdough bread and pour over a little of the oil from last year's capsicums in olive oil, together with a piece of King Island (Australian) smoked cheddar (smoked the old-fashioned way) and one of my last peaches, still surviving well in the fridge. A fine afternoon snack indeed.

"The Inaugural Festival Of Food-Growing Bloggers" - what do you think?

ps The mussels were great - I will put a couple of my favourite mussel recipes on tomorrow.