ANZAC biscuit-free zone

For the last few days we’ve been working our way through these ridiculously small but highly perfumed fruit. Home grown and picked by one of the guys at the market, last week I got a kilo of these under-sized feijoas for less than the price of a coffee. Each time I enter the kitchen, it’s like coming home. Literally. My olfactory senses tell me I’m back in New Zealand. The small, taste and texture is pure nostalgia.



This week I also made my first green curry paste from scratch, ridiculous considering how many other curries I make from first principles. I based it on this recipe throwing in more liberal quantities of most ingredients (including lots more green chillies) and omitting the coriander root, being the only herb I was out of. At first I was very disappointed. Yes the flavours had a vibrancy to them but the concoction didn't knock my socks off. Then I remembered the paste is only half of the flavour balance. After frying off the fresh paste and then simmering with coconut milk, I got out the fish sauce, palm sugar and split open a lime. A Thai curry is an alchemical process. The paste may be the base metal but it's the final three ingredients that create the magic.

Staring at me accusingly in the kitchen is also a bag of lemons, gifted from a visitor from over the border. I’ve been hanging out to make more lemonade, a perfect antidote to the unseasonably balmy weather of late.

No ANZAC biscuits for me, to commemorate the day instead I’ve a round up of old posts from my Grandfather’s WWI diary at my other blog, there’s also a post on what he ate at the front, in hospital and at Christmas while waiting to be shipped off from camp in my archives.

Enjoy the long weekend, take a leaf out of Princess Prissy Paws book and take it easy!

market goodies

Without any disloyalty intended to my beloved mango and delicious summer berries, the autumn cornucopia is something to be marvelled at. I am loving the short season of feijoas even if i did have a sneak preview a couple of weeks ago in NZ. Last week my secret stall had them for $3/kg but I knew it'd only take a few days before the word got out and the price jumps up. Today they clocked in at $5/kg which was still 1/3 of the price that 2 other stalls had them for. I have also been romancing persimons for the last month. A cheery orange fruit with a vanillary sweetness inside, I don't know why I haven't gone mad for them before.

But my finds of the day came from a specialist stall. I got my first hit of samphire, straight from some South Australian salt marsh and enjoyed bitting into the salty vegetation then and there. I was on the look out for this underused delicacy, since reading Ed’s recent post. Other than washing it well to get off the grit, its hard to resist nibbling them as is. I’m thinking salad with something fishy or in a simple stir fry. Any other suggestions?



The other beauty were some desert limes, or at least one variety of. I’m loathed to honestly describe what the hard, cylindrical fruit really remind me of but all scatological reference is forgotten when tasting the citrusy beads inside. Think juicy explosions of intensified kaffir lime leaves. The market guy, another shopper and I debated over best use of the fruit – which went in unison “alcohol”, “muddled” and “copious”. It definitely would be a great addition to a citrus flavoured cocktail. In the meantime, I sprinkled some beads on smoked salmon for my lunchtime sandwich. A great combination. I suspect they were used in a a curry sauce I had at Gingerboy (hang on to your hats for that post).




With winter a mere week away, it’s time to enjoy the autumn abundance while it lasts. Mandarins are well and truly in and apples still at their crunchy hiatus. The remaining grapes on the vine are 99% gone or shrivelled meaning the laborious task of pruning is before me. Hopefully by next year the recently planted rhubarb would have gone forth and multiplied in my tiny garden.

Enjoy whatever season you are in.