in season: get it while it's good

I figure in Australia being a vast land and all that, almost anything is in season somewhere in the country at any time of year. Hass avocados, for instance, are grown all year round according to the industry’s marketing information. But Melbourne prices tell a different story when it comes to quality and availability.

I’ve put together a guide from organic stalls and farmers markets for what looks good, in Melbourne this April. Feel free to add to it.

Fruit
Apples are at their peak; worth spending a bit more to explore the dozens of different organically grown varieties that taste like apples did in your childhood.
Pears are slowly ripening.
Mandarins are heading the new citrus season, watch out for local oranges and grapefruits coming soon.
Limes have been a cheaper buy than lemons in the past month. If local trees are anything to go buy it will still be another month or so til lemons make a come back.
Persimmons, just in for their short and sweet season.
Quinces are starting to trickle in.
Still some figs about but not for much longer.
Grapes are on the way out but still a good buy.
Chillies are still abundant in my garden.

Nuts
The new season Tasmanian walnuts have arrived and taste great.
Chestnuts are starting to make an appearance.
Keep an eye out for local hazelnuts.

Vegetables
Pumpkins are still abundant and cheap.
Root vegetables are coming into their own – carrots, beetroot, sweet potato are a good buy.
Hopefully later in the month we’ll see some interesting mushrooms.
Say goodbye to tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and cucumbers as their season ends and prices rise.

Update It's the second to last week of April and am overjoyed to report that feijoas are now in season too. I got a kilo of (admittedly small sized) feijoas for $3 from the market. The bonus was they were grown locally and without sprays. Larger ones were $7.50 (from the most expensive conventional stall at the entire market) and $9.50 (organic).

vignettes

What you need comes to you

I tripped off to the new(ish) Fitzroy market on Saturday before Armageddon hit. It reminded me of Glebe market when I first went there twenty-something years ago. Smaller. But Has Promise.

The rent from the stalls at the market goes to Fitzroy School’s Kitchen Garden project. That’s reason enough to support it.

A couple of days before I’d made a batch of marinated olives. Carbon dating the original recipe*, I scribbled it down and first made them in the mid ‘80s. It’s a simple concoction – a few herbs, good Kalamata olives, a decent olive oil. I’d assembled the marinade bar one vital ingredient – a couple of bay leaves. Too bad I thought, I'm sure it will be ok without it. And forgot about it.

At the Fitzroy market my eyes fell upon a big tub of laurel branches, a generous stallholder giving them away. Take two they urged. No one’s enough there’s so many leaves on the branch. A nice chat, then off home with the lush foliage peeking out of my bag.

The missing bay leaves, fresh and vibrant, now added to the marinated olives.





Follow your instincts

Before I skipped out the door in the last of the sunlight, I’d put the tagine in the laundry tub to soak. The terracotta pot, when not used every day, needs a bit of a dip, time to dry and then a rub with oil to season it before cooking.

At lunchtime I whipped up a simple vegetable tagine with a big dob of harissa from my freshly harvested chillies, threw in some left over green olives and gently put it in a cold oven. The plan was to cook it all afternoon on very low (about 125C) and forget about it til dinner.

With the sun still high in the sky but feeling a little lazy after my morning wander, I drove rather than walked the kilometre or so up the road and submitted myself to a much needed massage.

Relaxed and a little dazed I stumbled out onto the darkened street and wondered where I was. Had I been transported to a winter’s afternoon in London? Not even 3 and the sky was so dark, every car had its lights on. Coming back to my senses, I was full of foreboding and started driving home. In the short trip the sky opened and pelted me with hail. It was a storm on monolithic proportions.

Safely inside, the house was infused with the aroma of the slow cooking tagine, locals tweeted amazing images of impromptu rivers running down city streets, hail stones the size of lemons and general chaos.

It was quite a storm.

And quite a tagine!


veggie tagine ready for a long slow cook: eggplant, pumpkin, leeks, fennel, green olives, parsnip, homegrown cherry tomatoes and harissa

Seasons

I don’t need a calendar to know when autumn has arrived. Nor look for fallen leaves to crunch under my feet. Autumn officially begins the morning I awake craving porridge (oatmeal) and when I get the urge to make a big pot of soup.

Today is the day. Goodbye summer. Farewell asparagus. See you later berries. Bring on the pumpkin!

Porridge for breakfast (with crushed nuts and maple syrup) and a pot of autumn vegetables and bean soup cooking on the stove.

I'm ready!


*Marinated olives


The original recipe
(Source unknown)
2 c Kalamata olives
1 c olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 dried red chillies, crushed
2 bay leaves

Mix ingredients in a bowl then transfer to a sterilized jar. Marinate for 1 week, stirring occaisionally. Use the marinade for salad dressings etc or reuse.

My version
In a clean jar combine fresh chillies, black pepper corns, bay leaves and lots of garlic with the best quality olives and olive oil you can find. Keep out of direct light, at room temperature and try to resist eating them for at least a week. Shake the jar daily.

beyond Ramsay and another box of oranges

Karl Quinn, in The Age, is suggesting the Ramsay-Grimshaw stoush was a set up. Call me cynical but I get the feeling the senior writer for Fairfax is trying to create his own controversy.

What I learnt from seeing Ramsay last weekend is that most of the audience didn’t find him particularly charming or even funny but some will do almost anything to win a small appliance or have their few seconds of fame. To be in the proximity of a celebrity is what it is all about.

But it has nothing to do with cooking. The guy for all his ugliness can cook. Uncouple the dreadful banter and infamy from his demo in the celebrity theatre and just let him create good simple food. Free him of the expectation to perform as anything other than a chef and I would have been happy to pay good money for the experience. After all the bloke used tahini for goodness sake and for me I can find redemption in popularising deceptively simple, healthy food.

You see we, the viewing public, have created Ramsay. We are the ones that demand the swearing (people left the theatre actually disappointed to not hear a single f*ck from him). We are the ones getting our jollies from the fallout with the ACA host. We are the ones that have turned cooking into reality television. Yes, we are the monster that created Masterchef (tune out, let the ratings drop and we will be free of it next year, I promise you).

This week I have cooked and eaten an awful lot. There has been quinoa pilaf, a simple chickpea curry made from imagination, a hearty bean and vegetable soup, an unexpected lunch at Cookie and generally lots of shared food around the table. Not much is what I would call “blogworthy”, mainly due to it being just regular simple fare, no bells and whistles or because I have documented here on these pages before.

Everything has a season. It is June, the SE’s birthday and with it comes his family from Sydney and a box of home grown oranges and lemons. There will definitely be another jar of preserved lemons, the orange cake might even get made this year but inevitably at least half the citrus will simply be squeezed and drunk. Sure there might be an intense orange jelly set with agar. There could be the spiced lemon pickle I didn’t get around to making last year. But you know, it doesn’t matter because merely squeezing it and drinking it straight is a delicious, simple experience in itself.

I know that if I miss messing with the fruit this year, the opportunity will come around again. Everything has a season – the anticipation, the first taste of the year, the inevitable glut that turns the sort after into the every day. Round and round it goes.

Enjoy the zesty citrus, roasted chestnuts and hearty soups that make winter what it is. For now, I am loving a bowl of steaming hot porridge with a dash of maple syrup before work, almost as much as anticipating bed with a hot water bottle at the end of the day. I can wait for spring to fall in love with asparagus again and summer for my first mango of the season but for now an orange grown with love is fine with me.

dolmades and wine

At this time of year I am getting to watch the grapevine grow before my eyes.

Last year with the extreme cut back, for the garden makeover, we didn't know if the 50-plus years old vine would survive the drought. It flourished but there were no grapes. The previous year it had been laden, so much fruit it was hard to pick it all before the birds got them.

With even less than usual rain this winter, I wasn't too hopeful about the state of the grapevine. I never water it. I figure its roots must be pretty deep by now. But it is a tough country to be a plant in at the moment.

Two weeks ago, I took a shot of the first leaves.



This morning the same leaves looked like this.



Abundance, half a dozen bunches have sprung up since I last blinked.



I see dolmades, in the next month before the leaves toughen under the summer sun. Anyone want to join me in November for an inner city afternoon of blanching and rolling and cooking? It is an activity best shared with wine and laughter.