AUSTRALIAN 'TRUFFLE' AND OTHER THINGS FOR A WEDNESDAY

While we are on the subject of things native to our area (after the Tumbeela visit), I thought I would check out what other foods the local Aboriginal people (who would have lived in our foothills, where I live) ate. There is a surprising variety of nuts, seeds, leaves, fruits, tubers and so on as well as animals such as lizards, birds, snakes, small mammals and large ones, like kangaroos etc etc. Specific, though, to the foothills of Adelaide are 2 types of fungi - and a lot of white people have eaten some of the wrong ones and been very sick through mis-identification and lack of knowledge of preparation. So please don't take my advice on what is edible and what is not.

Funny how things go - you know, you read a word you have never heard of before and then that word seems to be everywhere. Well, I was out getting the letters from the letter-box when I noticed something under the Acacia iteaphylla - the one whose earthy scent I adore - and I ducked in under the branches to see what it was. Holy valotta! It was just like the photos I had seen of the local fungi ! The two I mentioned usually exist together - some kind of lovely symbiotic relationship thing - and there they were! The smaller, white ones were called "goanaavapoo", by the local Aborigines and looked like the bumpy tops of golf-balls. The big, light brown ones were called "imbigidunapoo" and resembled sponges you sometimes see on the beach.

(This Tecoma capensis is not a native or anything to do with the rest of this post but it is as tough as they come and is thriving despite the number of times I have tried to kill it because it suckers everywhere.)

Anyway, In the book it said that the white ones are distantly related to the French truffle, and actually used to be used as a substitute in truffle-infused oil, by the early French settlers around the foothills of Mont d'Osmond. Some of the people who read this blog live in France and may have seen it written up recently in a French magazine 'Comestible et Exotique' - because of the connection to the recent problems with Chinese truffles in France. Have you people heard of it? The use of these in Adelaide abruptly stopped when someone tried cooking with them, because this releases an enzyme which causes a toxic reaction, and the couple died within hours. Steeped raw, in oil, however is believed to be safe. (Don't take my word for it though!)

Many years ago I dug a big hole on the other side of my driveway and asked the local lawn-mowing man to dump lawn clippings there any time he saw the big pink ribbon tied around a stake I erected there. When I see he has dumped a load of lawn clippings, I tip over a bag of raw manure. he adds clippings, I add manure and some dry leaves etc, until we have a lovely big heap. Then I take the ribbon off and leave it all to compost down for a while. About twice a year I did it all out and use it on the garden. This I have finished doing today. It is all full of worms and looks perfect. This is a dead easy way to get some compost happening, if you have a bit of space to dig a hole, near the road. You wouldn't even know it was there - at the back, right of the photo, because it doesn't take long to rot down to ground level. This area is about 3m X 3m X 1.5m deep.

WATTLESEED HEAVEN

If I died now, at least I would have had wattleseed icecream!

I am not that keen on icecream - or at least I wasn't. Even good icecream leaves me cold (ha, ha). But when we tried that half a teaspoonful at Tumbeela on Sunday, I thought I would make some for dear Roger, who lives mainly to eat icecream! So today I semi melted 1 litre of vanilla icecream (Well, actually I forgot about it and it melted a bit more!). While this was happening, I mixed together a couple of tablespoons of roasted wattleseeds and a roughly equivalent amount of hot water, just as they told us to at Tumbeela.

Already it is looking pretty good. I poured it back into the icecream container and put it in the freezer. Well, there was a bit left in the bowl so I had a bit. Zut alors! Magnifique! Bonissimo!(Do you also want the Japanese? Oishii)

It is not good to like icecream and it has never been a temptation before but this is like a coffee/ hazelnut flavour with the aroma of chocolate. Mmmmm. Pattie, if you still haven't used all I sent you, please try this.

CARBON WEEVILS

Here is a wonderfully creative and humourous but dark sketch of us - the carbon weevils. Take it with you on your day - it is good to laugh at ourselves now and again.

Carbon Weevils

WHERE WOULD I BE NOW?

We, in the Hills and Plains Seedsavers, have some wonderful members. So many different stories have brought these folks to the group and each deserves to be told, but I had better ask them first! I am lucky to be the contact person because that means I get to be first in line to get an email or a phone call or a tap on the shoulder at other things I go to like the Rare Fruit meetings etc, when someone wants to join up. This gives me a chance to have a chat with them and remember their names. Normally I am hopeless with names but I don't think I have ever forgotten the names of any of our members because they are such interesting people.One person I know I can mention though, is Deb, from Nirvana Farm. Deb and Quentin live the whole self-sufficient life thing that most people, including me, only dream of and play around the edges. But you can read about that on Deb's blog. What I want to say is that Deb is one of those people who honestly enjoy giving and sharing - and so do I - but more than that, she has so many abilities and is so content and so generous of her time and efforts. As I walked around my garden the other day I realised how many of my vegetables I have grown from Deb's seeds and how many of my projects have joined up with ideas from Deb and even my fridge has Deb's sourdough starter in it and the first home-made limoncello I had was a bottle Deb gave me and those turnips I wrote about the other day were from Deb!!! Wow, that's even more than I realised! On my table are mandarins she brought to our lunch last weekend and her bread is still in the cupboard...it goes on and on! In fact it brings a tear to my eyes to now actually see all this for the first time. Where would I be now if not for Deb?? So, here's to you Deb and to many more years of fun and friendship. Three cheers for Deb....

Read Deb's latest installment on her blog - so lovely and so....Deb. Cosy Country Kitchen.

THE ULTIMATE CAPSICUM

Now I really have picked what must surely be the last of the capsicums, although, as it is going to continue warm and dry for at least the next week, probably forever, I am sure there will be more flowers. When Cath gave me the seeds last year she told me that the Yellow Cornos was the best tasting capsicum she had ever had. I didn't believe her (sorry Cath) because I had never tasted a really good yellow capsicum at all and thought the yellow colour was just a marketing ploy. So I sowed lots of the Red Cornos and only a few of the yellow.

You have seen dozens of photos of the red ones over summer and, sure, they are very nice. So are the Pimento's from Tony. But the Yellow Cornos actually is the ultimate capsicum for taste. It is so good we usually eat 1 each, biting into it whole, like an apple. Even Roger, who is skeptical about the quality of my taste buds, agrees that it is good enough to be classed as a fruit and eaten like one. Cooking reduces its taste somewhat, so does putting it in a salad. It cries out to be eaten whole and raw. If you can get the seeds, try it yourself, I don't have enough to give away because I darn well sowed so few. But next year I will save masses of them.

They don't seem to colour evenly but maybe they crossed a bit with Cath's Red Cornos and became this hybrid. Unlike other capsicums, I decide when to pick it by its feel, rather than its colour - once the skin gives a bit when you squeeze it, that's when the taste is fully developed, I have found. Picked too hard they aren't as good. The things we learn; funny.

Capsicums are good. Sow them thick and eat them whole!

THE NATIVES AND THE FERALS HAVE A FEAST

What a great day. I would venture to say that it is the best day we, the Hills and Plains Seedsavers have had in our short 20 month history! Everyone must have been up early to produce the fabulous food - and what a range there was! But the first stop was Tumbeela Native Bushfoods at Verdun in the Adelaide Hills. Here we gathered on the covered verandah of the shed, looking out across the hills and were each given a biscuit and a cup of tea.The tea was a mix of 2 native leaves and the biscuit was wattleseed. Warren then put on what could only be described as a fabulous, friendly, informative and amusing 1/2 hour show and told us how he, who used to be a NZ teacher, moved with his wife and family to this piece of land about 20 years ago to do the whole mid-life hippy thing, with coloured sheep, wild children plus a full-time job. Eventually this evolved and morphed into sourcing some native cuttings of plants from the tropics of Queensland to the cold south of Tasmania and having a go at growing them at Tumbeela, about half way between! Today Warren and his wife grow the beautiful Tasmanian Mountain Pepper tree, Lemon Myrtle, Riberry and a couple of trials of Aniseed Myrtle and Cinnamon Myrtle. Each one of these has its own aromas and tastes which, although likened to things we all know, are much broader in flavour and deserve to be in every Australian kitchen.

The thing I loved most about the whole hour and a half there was the hands-on approach and Warren encouraging us all to try everything - from the leaves straight off the trees, to the dried bush tomatoes, teas and the magnificent wattleseed icecream! And we all now have seedlings of our own, packets of this and that, including the fragrant lemon myrtle-infused honey and he has sealed in us the desire to know more about what is growing under our Australian noses, so to speak! We wish him all the best and I am sure we will all see him at the Stirling market and I can't wait for the bush tomato and riberry plants to arrive. I am hooked. Thanks Warren!

And we got to meet Vegie Gnome and Flower Gnome from Mad Gnomes and Neighbour Gnome too! In fact, Vegie Gnome did a much better job of recounting the visit to Tumbeela than me. Read it here.Blogs are great... make one fast and take it slow, with us!

Next we headed down the hill a way, to my place where about 20 of us had a feral feast. I bought the un-farmed meat from Wild Oz at the Central Market on Friday - goat chops, pork chops, kangaroo sausages (with bush tomato and mountain pepper leaf!) all grown wild, as meat should be. As well I smoked some Rainbow Trout in our little tin smoker and everyone brought stuff made from something in their gardens. Wow, what great food and such variety. Everything from Barb's vegie patties and Jills beetroot and carrot salad, to home made bread, and mandarin 'puddings with a syrup to die for! There is no doubt about it - this group produces THE best food every single time we get together and always it is inspired by our gardens. What more could you want in life than that?!

I am so glad we have all found each other and I know that everyone else feels the same way. There is no substitute for the camaraderie of like-minded people especially when they are down-to-earth gardeners with a passion for growing food and sharing good times. I put on this photo of me that Roger took today because I want to thank you all - I am looking at everyone of you - and let the good times roll!

There wasn't much left at the end of the day! What satisfactory guests! And, you know what, they even tidied up at the end and saved us endless trips up to the kitchen. Two loads of washing and its all done and here I am, back on the blog!

(Tumbeela is in the process of updating their website but I have put the link, for future reference.)

WATER, OIL AND LIFE

Out in the garden on Saturday afternoon, in the beautiful May sunshine, sowing and reaping from my own toil, I suddenly felt a very tight knot develop in my stomach - really. As I moved out of the shade and into the almost hot sun, I finally accepted that the situation we are in with water is not just serious but deadly serious. I have tried to not think too much about it since we got some rain because, to be truthful, I need a break from it. We all do. Mentally it is difficult to move on from something so out of one's control, I find. I like to fix problems, but I can't fix this one. So I try not to think about it....it doesn't work forever.

Our South Australian rivers and lakes are becoming baths of sulphuric acid. Wildlife is being decimated. Orchards, dairies and whole towns are shrivelling up, literally. It is heart-breaking to see mining and manufacturing and ridiculous, new golf-courses getting all the water they need but a century or more of food-production work is being left to die and us along with it. We are being actively discouraged from growing our food by the water-restrictions, unlike any other country in drought, even America, where food-gardens are exempt from restrictions. Food is being shipped in from China daily, in ever-increasing amounts. It is absurd.

Everyone is buying enormous plastic tanks and installing hundreds of metres of plastic tubing - is more and more plastic the answer?? It is a bandaid. Here have a bandaid, but the wound is so infected that it is never going to be a cure. Plastic is made from oil. Oil takes millions of years to be created, as does coal, and it is being used up for making bandaids. Ridiculous. We need to save the oil for things that are not bandaids.We need to save every drop of water and catch it somewhere, of course; I am not suggesting otherwise.

But, in this case, it would be better done by catching it before it gets to the sea, cleaning it and using that for things other than household use. After all, the natural wet-lands which existed on the eastern side of the sandhills between Brighton and Port Adelaide were the life-blood of Adelaide in the early days. They supported all the wildlife and were the cleaning mechanism for all the run-off from our creeks. Then they built houses and roads and 'drained the swamps' to make money from West Lakes, Henley, Grange, West Beach and all the seaside suburbs. Don't get me started on sand-shifting, which is what is going on now with massive 4-wheel-drive trucks, and this time every year, when I walk weekly along the beach. If those wet-lands were still there, we would not be in this situation today.

I have said some of this before, I know. But I just had to say it again, this time at some ridiculously early hour on a Sunday, because most people are going about their business not noticing that it is hard to buy nice cream now and that (evidently) there is a huge shortage of milk for making processed cheese (why anyone would buy processed cheese from the supermarket is another thing I don't understand). Food prices are going up, along with petrol, but people just complain and don't think about why this is so. I don't buy much so I shouldn't care. I can grow everything and we can live happily.

So, the gist of all this is why do I care about water and oil and so on? Why does it affect me so deeply? Because I can see huge world-wide unrest and worse, approaching us like a train out of control. I said this to husband Roger, when Bush was elected the first time. Look what has happened. He can be voted out; we are stuck with the train. Water is essential for life and oil has become essential for lifestyle. People have fought wars over far less and as the population increases the only solution is to take someone else's supplies. Sound familiar? What about when a population of a country like Australia, or even just little old South Australia, doesn't have enough water and governments refuse to act? I want to shake them and shout at them and DO something. I don't want to fight. But around Adelaide neighbours have started fighting and in rural areas, whole communities are taking sides and fighting. "If I can't water my orchard which is my livelihood, you shouldn't be watering your vegetable garden." Governments, instead of taking a lead, have decided to let the people fight it out. It won't work and things will deteriorate into chaos when we compound this with sky-rocketing petrol and food prices.

Thousands and thousands of people in SA are dependent on food production for an income - directly or indirectly, from the deli owner to the truckie and the chemist to the local schools. The rest of us can't afford to pay them when they are unemployed, so what happens then? The whole fabric of civilisation is at stake here and that is what is bothering me. So, when you see me later today at Tumbeela and at my place for lunch afterwards, you will know why I am up at 5.30am on a Sunday morning. Ignorance would be bliss.