DOGS, GARDENING, FRIENDS AND FOOD....WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?

Wednesdays and Fridays seem to provide me with quite a nice mix of gardening and foraging. This week gardening was at Glenys' again and although the day was sunny, the air was freezing. The whippets still had their jackets on and even after a couple of hours of work, we still had ours on too.

Glenys' rustic style vegetable garden is productive all year round .	Below is Lou, above is Sally and most importantly, above left is Mako...
Glenys is the queen of red cabbages.... above right. The echium below is about to burst into flower and is totally drought hardy.	By the time the morning tea was being served by Glenys, the day had warmed up and we sat in the sun there and enjoyed her magnificent apple pie and coffee.

 

Today, Friday, I went to the market and when I first arrived I did a rare thing and decided to have breakfast before I started shopping. I chose Lucia's Cafe for a change and sat there, in the midst of the crowds, looking at the comings and goings and just thinking about stuff; in a kind of dream really.....next time I will go back to Zuma's. People tell me they like Lucia's but the coffee wasn't nearly as good and the croissant was ordinary. Later,at Cappo's the fishmonger, I came across the Veggie Gnome and the Flower Gnome on a rare trip so far from home, to the market.

As usual when I am a bit late, I saw Tony Scarfo arriving in his ute as I was crossing the road to Wilson's. This time the boxes in the back were piled up with broccoli, red cauli-brocs the size of  basketballs, loads of fennel and silver beet as well as beetroot and 3 romanesco broccoli, like the ones Deb and I tried to grow. No wonder we didn't have a lot of success because Tony planted 50 and of these, only 3 or 4 were outstanding, most of the rest being open and messy and unsalable, after waiting for so long to get them to maturity. He is like me in that he likened it to an addiction .....you never give up wanting to grow beautiful things but, like beautiful women, he said, they are unattainable! I was, never the less, admiring one of the good romanescos on his cart and feeling its shape and saying I would buy it and put a photo here on the blog, when he said I could have it for nothing. You never argue when Tony offers you something, it seems rude, so I took it and have tried to photograph it but it doesn't show its spirals well enough so I will try again tomorrow in a different light.

FRIDAY AT THE MARKET...AGAIN

There is always a story to tell about the market on a Friday and today it is all about fun. This whole 50th birthday thing seems to have taken over even my Friday market trip as everywhere I went people said happy birthday. At Vegas, the chicken stall, the bloke gave me a free insulated bag and a little jar of Thai sauce to go with the chicken shasliks I bought for the party....At Wilson's it was pumping and full of all the regulars and was like a party already! Final details for James and his fruit cocktails, checking with Victoria that the food was happening with her boyfriend Jarrod, giving the address to Angela and talking to Daphne about that post I wrote about her garden and how much she and her family liked the printout I gave her.

Tony Scarfo was there at Wilson's too, delivering his vegetables and showing me how the female shape had developed voluptuously for his fennel. People of Italian background see things in a nice kind of way, I think! I ran my hand over a barrow load of his gorgeous broccoli and asked him how he could part with them as they were so divinely shaped and fully grown and deep, deep green.... We talked about all sorts of things as usual, before the crush of incoming customers separarted us and he drifted off to get more stuff from his barrow, outside the door.

Where else would I find so many lovely, friendly, happy, quirky, crazy people gathered together in the pursuit of growing, selling and buying fresh, local, organic food? This is a place of inspiration, joy and understanding and what I want to know is why life in our cities isn't packed to overflowing with experiences like this because it sure is working in this tiny shop where local and organic are mainstream and not expensive and the backyard grower can sell stuff too, like I have sometimes done. Today I bought leeks grown in Plympton...not certified but home-grown, claiming to be natural and looking full-flavoured, robust, fresh and thick. I will take the chance as Angela only buys from the regular customers.... what comes around goes around.

Ting and Tina, two of our newest members who have never met each other but have each read this blog, have discovered the joys of the central market because of all this stuff I write about it and, for me, that is reason enough to keep writing about life in this slow and quirky lane. If you want life and a laugh with your food, immerse yourself in the market and the surrounding shops.

If you like, meet me there on a Friday morning and come and experience it with me..... all I want in return is a coffee at Zuma's at the end!!

Life is good. Get to the market fast and then take it slow.... really slow.

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FRIDAY......ALWAYS A GREAT DAY

When the day starts with a trip to the market you can be sure it has the greatest chance of turning up something to write about and today was no exception. Lately we have had a few people join our seedsavers group after enjoying reading stuff on the blog and this morning I set off for the market ready to have coffee with Tina, who I had never met. In our brief exchange of details I said "Just look for the lady with the blue trolley, at Zuma's at 10.30." So along she came, heading straight for my trolley and by the smile on her face I knew we were going to have a lovely chat. Anyway, she was coming to the market specifically because of my ravings about it on the blog so she couldn't be all bad!

We were still there nearly 2 hours later and I was horrendously late for helping prune Deb's willow house. The funny thing was that we just seemed like reflections in a time warp, she being quite a bit younger than me and with a young child, and I felt very comfortable talking with her about everything from seeds and growing food to bringing up children and making the most of your life. In two hours I swear we covered more ground than a lot of people do after years of knowing each other. She is right into the wicking bed system that Scarecrow writes about and is lucky enough to have a dad who has helped her get a vegetable garden going. I am sure that Tina is going to fit right in with the rest of us and I am looking forward to introducing her to everyone on KGI day August 24th at Deb's.

After racing home and getting changed I went to Deb's for the annual pruning of the willow house. When I arrived they were all finishing lunch - hot soup on the campfire and one of Deb's fabulous bread rolls so of course, being always hungry, I headed straight for the food! Maggie, Bob, Jill, Ting and Chris were there helping Deb and a lot of progress had already been made. Mary had been there earlier and I was sorry to have missed her.

Chris was amazing at taking to the roof like a bird, pruning and weaving the long canes into position.

Maggie was tying some of the prunings into bundles because Deb uses them to weave into baskets and fences and all sorts of lovely things like Ian from A Kitchen Garden in France wrote about recently.

There are lots more photos here.

And here is a link to an idea for using living structures for children to play in at The National Botanic garden in Wales, as recommended by Chaise Longue in the comments below.

I think as a group we should set aside a day next year to get this job completely done for Deb because it is a really lovely way to spend some time together doing something so satisfying and for people so generous as Deb and Quentin.....and I promise I won't be late!

While I was sitting having a cup of tea in front of the fire and uploading the photos from the camera, Roger brought in a huge load of firewood and heated up the dinner....very nice.

Fridays are good. Get them fast and then take them slow....

MORE MARVELOUS MARKET MOMENTS

As I sit at home here eating a croissant and sipping my espresso coffee I do marvel at the variety we have at the Central Market. I can buy anything edible there. You would hard-pressed to mention some ingredient that is not available, at some time of the year, from any cuisine in the world.

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But this is not in the slightest what I want to talk about this time, so why I wrote it I have no idea.

You can see the labels that Wilsons put on their produce - who grew it, where, if it is certified organic, what it is and the price. But you often see comments such as these on the labels too which always makes shopping there a bit different. The second one refers to the fact that Tony works so hard at growing his vegetables that he literally often can be seen out gardening in the moonlight! And that's fair dinkum. Unfortunately the broccoletti bunches were all gone - actually Tony was busy unloading more from his ute.

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With this whole visit to vegetables gardens of the world trip in mind today, I went to the market a bit later to try and catch up with Tony Scarfo - our delightful local, organic market-gardener who happens to come from an Italian background. Seriously lacking in this trip is some connection to Italy. I am determined, therefore, to leave no stone unturned in the search for someone to visit in Italy, somewhere. Sadly Tony couldn't help me directly but had some great ideas and while we were standing there by his ute talking about them along came one of his other customers - a lovely Italian bloke called Carlo. He is there in the photo on the right of Tony.

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It transpired that he was from the city (I forget now which one) and has no links to rural Italy either but also had some ideas which we three discussed in the animated Italian way. The best bit though came when I asked Carlo if by chance he grows any vegetables now. Now this was obviously something that sparked his interest because he smiled a beautiful smile and proceeded to tell me that yes, he grows mountains of stuff and yes I would be welcome to come and look at it all anytime. Moreover, he lives near Maggie - not far from my place.You know how some people just have good vibes? Well Carlo is one such person and I really look forward to seeing his garden soon.
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Now that is not all to this market saga. My whole 50th birthday party plan is revolving around Wilson's, as luck would have it. You see, James, who serves there is also a photographer as well as running 'Pedal Powered Products' both of which will be very handy for enhancing some of my plans! What's also interesting is that Victoria, who also works at Wilson's, has a boyfriend who I met last week, has a catering business making organic finger-food - some of which I sampled this morning at Wilson's. So that's most of the business end of the deal sorted at the One Stop Wilson's Party Shop !!

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Life is good...and getting better by the magical minute!

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(Blogger has gone completely mad and won't let me leave any spaces between my paragraphs, hence all the little dots! Also it won't let you click on the first photo to enlarge it. I forgot to use Windows Live Writer again but you should try it if you have as much trouble as I do with Blogger and have a son who works for Google but won't help me get it fixed! Hey Alex!! Either that or switch to Wordpress - grrrr)

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FRIDAY...ON THURSDAY, AND THE STORY OF THE PEA

It was supposed to be a Thursday like any other - walk with mother's dog on the beach, lunch at mother's house, do a couple of jobs for her, head back home, cook dinner for mother-in-law, greet mother-in-law, feed her lots of cheeses, give her lots of wine, eat dinner, give her some homework - she loves me to print off something I have written during the week to read and we discuss it next week! But....son Hugh, who for many reasons happened to be home at our place on Wednesday night, said he would like to go with me to the market on Thursday as he was busy on Friday. So, being the mother-who-has -nothing-to-do-but-bend-to-her-family's-wishes, I said OK. What I imagined would be a quick trip in, a bit of food shopping, some morning tea at the market with mother in lieu of lunch and the whole dog thing and then home to the garden for the afternoon, turned into a mammoth day with Hugh, arriving home at about 5pm.

Hugh is larger than life! He is not tall or fat but is just plain all-encompassing, no matter how you look at him! From the top of his no doubt expensive, white sunglasses and blonde hair, down past the bulging arm muscles, great all-year round tan and the pale yellow T-shirt that says certified organic, to the shorts, hairy legs and sandshoes, he oozes presence! He knows how to have a good time, he understands people (especially his mother!) and he has a job the envy of many and the despair of his girlfriend's parents! He is a watch-leader on the One and All sail-training ship - a square-rig ship that takes groups of disadvantaged kids out for a week at a time to show them there is more to life than drugs, alcohol and bad language. He loves it and he and the crew are seeking the title "Best Sail Training Ship In The World". He has a passion and wants to lead the world - does that sound like anyone else you know from around here? He has plans and ideas - wise and otherwise - and nobody is going to keep him inside the square and I love him dearly for it and am very proud of him. .

So, at the market we just bought double of everything (and guess who paid?) - half for him and his house-mate (another lad from the One and All) and half for Roger and I. Sounds simple but life with Hugh is never simple or cheap. Of course, he wanted some special French cheeses, expensive wine and other things for a picnic on the weekend with his girlfriend - there I drew that line that pops up from time to time! He could buy them himself, that curtailed the spending enormously because he spent all his money living it up in Sydney after sailing there on the One and All last week. So he bought some fish and borrowed the smoker box and I picked him a basket full of goodies from the garden as well as some of my jars of preserves from the cupboard - olives, chutney, jam and bottled peaches.

My mother, at 85, has been going to the market all her life - well, since she and her family arrived in Adelaide from England when she was 2 - and she still goes, without fail. Instead of going to her place for lunch this week, Hugh and I joined her for morning tea at Zuma - a cafe in the market, where the coffee is excellent and the muffin of the day, cooked in little terracotta pots and served hot with cream is one of the best things in Adelaide. Once they stopped having these at Zuma because the pots are a bother to clean, they said, and there was a riot in the streets! I for one, told them I was going to take my patronage elsewhere because what was Zuma if not the place with the best muffins in the world?! Next week they were back. Speaking up is always good. They get the little pots from Bennett's Pottery in Magill, if anyone is interested in cooking them this way. John Bennett has a passion too and it is making terracotta things - another story. (I took the camera but alas, again, the battery was flat. Holy valotta I was disappointed but c'est la vie.)

We were sitting there in the window, slurping our coffee and chatting about this and that when my mother laughed and said she had something to tell me.....the other night she was at home, sitting at the kitchen table, shelling the peas she had bought at Wilson's Organics last week.... her glasses on, the radio going, the dog at her feet, dinner in the oven and so on. She slid her thumb down the line of peas in the next pod, to scoop them out into the bowl and she noticed that one of the peas had sprouted, there in the pod. She probably said "Well look at that, Sandy!" to the dog. She promptly stood up, took off her reading glasses, got the torch from the drawer and a trowel from the laundry cupboard and walked purposefully out into the dark, winter's night with the single, sprouted pea in her hand. Outside on the patio was an old concrete pot that I had filled with potting mix for her to plant a lemon verbena in. Instantly she decided to put the lemon verbena elsewhere and that this tub was to be the home of the pea. Into the soil it went.

Now, because my father was a nurseryman and had a passion for plants - all plants - he always did the gardening. My mother only started gardening at about 80 when my father died. I keep and area near her kitchen door clear for her to plant some vegetables in but more often this patch gets filled with bulbs and flowers - "Just for now, dear, until the weather warms up / cools down/ rains etc etc" So it was a wonderful thing for me to hear that she had planted a pea, - one of her favourite vegetables, in the dark on a cold winter's night. You see, parents can take after their children, even if it takes 85 years!

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Later that evening Roger couldn't find his wallet, missed the train from work, rang his mother who said she wasn't coming to dinner because it was now getting late and she doesn't like to drive in the fog. Then Roger's bike chain broke, it started to pour with rain and I had to go and pick up him and his bike from the corner of the parklands...dinner got late, very late. Hugh rang to say his car battery was flat and so was a tyre and why didn't I stay and help him instead of abandoning him at 4.30pm in Pt Adelaide...Hugh is lovely but there are limits to my endurance!...I went to put some wood in the fire after dinner, just thought I would lie down in front of the fire for a minute and went to sleep there....

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Life is good, if unpredictable... Go with the flow....

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(Bloody blogger...why won't Alex fix it!....he says he is doing other stuff but will get to it soon. Oh yeah! Don't hold your breath... I have been using Windows Live Writer which is much better. Today I forgot, in my enthusiasm to write this!)

ANOTHER MARKET FRIDAY

I think this regular "what happened at the market today" thing is taking a hold and should be a weekly column or something....anyway, as usual I went to the Central Market where the whole world gathers to tempt you with ingredients for everything from Asia to Morocco to France and to ...everywhere. The fresh stuff is all various stages of local from all Australian to all South Australian to little baskets of mandarins and this and that at Wilsons from local Adelaide suburban backyards, sometimes including my own. Having been going to this market since I was born, I know every nook and cranny and almost everybody who has been serving there too, at the stalls I frequent. It is the friendliest place to shop especially when you feel like all the stall-holders are your friends and they are from as diverse backgrounds as the produce they sell.

I always look out for Tony and hope to get some Italian practice but he has been a bit elusive the last couple of weeks - he told me his organic certification is coming up and he is flat-out like a lizard drinking, trying to comply with all the stupidest of requirements. There is a lovely young bloke working at Wilson's now, since my wonderful Antony left (but has now been found by Maggie at Doofdoof - the people who know 'food' backwards!) and his name is James. James and I have a secret plan for my birthday party which I bet no-one could guess (except maybe Maggie - be quiet Maggie) . How could I have a 50th vegetable party without inviting the people at Wilson's??

In Angelakis, getting some Coorong mullet, I was served by the cute little Greek bloke who always gives me a good deal and I always hope he will serve me. I said I was surprised there were any Coorong mullet left, with the soaring salinity that is killing, literally, everything in that waterway. he said, with fire in his eyes, "Don't get me started on water..." and proceeded to get started himself on water! Why aren't we catching it before it gets to the sea? Why are we letting cotton farmers take all our water? Why doesn't the government help them change to a better crop for a desert and let the water run down the river? And so on and so on...and of course I agreed and agreed and we commiserated together that we will all leave if this continues; no joke.

So, dear reader, it is not just me going on like this day in day out; even the bloke serving at the market fish shop can see what's needed but, and this is enough to make me erupt or go up in smoke, "they" have just announced they are going to spend $100 million on a new soccer stadium but have decided, in the budget announced last night, to scrap most of plans they had for water infrastructure and have made no allowance in the budget at all for doing anything about water, ever!! Oh my goodness. Death would be less painful. NZ, here we come!

I did manage to move on from that and enjoy the rest of the time at the market, you will be pleased to know. Now I am off to see the Veggie Gnome's garden!