After battling my way through Town Hall station to vote, I finally made it down to The Organic Expo and Green Show in Darling Harbour where Liss was already doing reconnaissance work to see what was good. At this show there are stands generously sampling their goodies and there are cooking shows featuring Tobie Puttock and Costa Georgiadis. I was talking to friends about eating organically and the one thing about it is that it can be expensive. Certainly people don’t want to eat chemicals and additives but it can be price prohibitive for many. However what we are pleasantly surprised about were the number of great deals on offer this weekend.
Spiral Foods
We start off at Spiral foods where people are helping themselves to samples of purple carrot juice. Did you know that carrots were originally purple and when it was the Dutch that cultivated orange carrots? Purple carrots are heirloom carrots and the taste is different from orange carrots. The purple carrot juice has overtones of tomato whilst having the aroma of grape. There is also concord grape juice and apple juice to try. Courtney from Masterchef is offering samples of the green pea chips and mung bean chips. The green pea chips are similar to wasabi peas without the wasabai whereas the mung bean chips are nutty.
One of the best buys here though is definitely the organic vinaigrette drizzles. There are three types for sale including a rose and white balsamic, a raspberry and hibiscus and a sesame shiitake. They’re all delicious and can be used as a salad dressing or as a basting for meat. They’re best before date is in December 2010 but it’s hard to pass up their deal, 2 for $5 or 3 for $6! These are usually between $7 and $8 each.
There are also free organic milk powder sachets being given away at the Fonterra stand.
At Organic times there are large 1 kg bags of organic rapadura suagr, organic cocoa powder and whole cane sugar.
Agape chocolate brownies
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| August 22nd, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
The alarm went off on a Sunday morning at 5:45am. It wasn’t a pretty sight, I had only had a few hour’s sleep and I make it a rule to sleep in on Sundays. Unless of course I’ve got something I’ve been looking forward to all week and that was the Lovedale Long Lunch. The nice people at Tourism NSW are taking a bus load of us from Sydney to the Hunter Valley for this annual event where you can participate in a progressive lunch across seven vineyards in the Hunter Valley that pair up with seven restaurants. For $42 people can buy a main meal, a cheese or dessert course and tasting glass which allows you to sample the wines at each winery. The bus was a great idea as it would allow us to enjoy ourselves tasting the wine without having to worry about getting back home.
We got onto the bus with the other journalists from Masterchef magazine, Ninemsn, Daily Telegraph and Getaway and everyone is friendly and excited. We all have a little breakfast box packed for us and we take the 2.5 hour drive to the Hunter Valley napping and chatting on the way. We use the time to go through the menus to see what we like the sound of. There are gluten free as well as vegetarian options at some.
Wandin Valley
First stop: Wandin Valley Estate! We survey the location and see that there are bales of plastic wrapped hay for people to sit on and there are two wine tasting areas. The first tasting area has the more premium wines where there is a $5 refundable entry upon purchase and then there’s a second a free wine tasting area. Mr NQN has become a bit of a wine lover so he became rather excited at the idea of coming along and he goes forth to try the wines here. He finds that the premium wines are worth trying as do the rest of the group who like the sparkling red.
As it’s rather early we walk around and take a look at the River Flats Estate produce that is sold here and try some of the cheeses. I like the feta cheese marinated with garlic and dill and we buy some of that. Their signature item is the pineapple and macadamia chutney which they’ve completely sold out of but they offer us a sample of it. It’s gorgeous and such an unusual pairing with a slight tingle to it. It sounds like everyone else loved it yesterday having depleted their supply! 
Succulent barbequed pork loin on roasted seasoned cocktail potatoes, topped with white balsamic apples and finished with an orange & red current glaze
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| June 14th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
The parade of dogs and their owners is the first give away. Then comes the parade of Clydesdale horses, vintage cars with white wall tyres and their owners with the wives waving gloves hands like the Queen. These were followed by a tractor who was then followed by a vintage tractor. The Narooma Oyster Festival had come to town! It was all so utterly country and Queen Viv and I just loved it.
There is a long queue that has formed out front. Entry to the Narooma Oyster festival is $5 and the show starts at 9am where the largest street parade on the South Coast winds it way around the riverside area and onto the streets. Queen Viv and do scout out the various stalls on offer. It’s surprisingly large with three rows of stalls covering crafts and food including a 12 metre oyster marquee plus a range of stalls.
Knitted bears (I purchased the one on the right lying down)
The craft stalls are manned and made by grandmothers and there are some absolutely gorgeous items at completely bargain prices. I nabbed myself a brand new knitted bear for $3 (stick a little scarf on him and a label and I can totally picture in a Woollahra shop window for $30!).
The trend here seems to be Dammit Dolls which are dolls that you can whack in times of frustration – kind of a more actionable figure than a voodoo doll I suppose!
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| May 17th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
There is a time of the year when only a hotdog on a stick covered in a cornmeal batter and dipped in tomato sauce will do. It’s an item that I just do not see any of time of the year (and for that I am quite grateful) but it also means that along with bunny shaped chocolate, hot cross buns and Christmas pudding, I look forward to it every year. To me it signals the beginning of Easter and the Easter Show, an annual event held in Sydney at Olympic Park. And Dear Readers, settle in with a cup of tea or coffee this lovely Easter Monday because this is a big post with 80 photos!
From left to right: Laura, Olivia and Eloise at the back
We were running slightly late, we were both bone tired from the day before and tried to locate Liss, A and their 3 frills to no avail. The map we are given is one a large double sheet of newsprint and she tells me that they are in the Paddington pavilion. Unfortunately all of the pavilion names do not appear on the map and we end up discarding it. I need a bathroom and there’s an enormous queue at the ladies but when times are desperate one will wait (not without a few of us checking out whether the men’s are free). Seven phone calls and countless SMSs later we finally locate Liss, A and the three girls who are all proudly sporting “I Milked a Cow” badges.
Oh hai!
Eloise feeds a goat “He’s my favourite” she declares.
There are goats and goat judging and the chance for people to pet little piglets (which are so adorable, I want to grab one under my arm and abscond with it!). We visit the working dairy where people can watch a dairy in action and we see the chicks, ducks and all sorts of animals with some roaming free for everyone to pat and feed. For $1 one can purchase a cup of food to feed them (although the goat that Eloise was feeding above seemed to like the hay).
There are also educational displays including computer games where children can help muster livestock by controlling the sheep dog as well as displays like the one above which show children (and adults) which parts of the cattle are used for what cuts and when you flip open the circles, it reveals a picture of the cut of meat.
I don’t think roosters can read
After each pavilion visit you get your Easter Show Passport stamped and when you’ve finished collecting all the stamps, you can win a prize (although I did forget about it! completely after getting my first stamp).
Dagwood Dog $5
It’s time for lunch and the girls are getting peckish so they try their first ever Dagwood Dog. We all know how unhealthy they are for you but the pervading smell of grease and deep frying that is present throughout the whole day is hard to resist especially when you see faces as happy as these.
Don’t you just love the unselfconsciousness of youth? I’d love to see an adult do this!
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| April 6th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
Warning: this post contains some graphic food! 
” Get your Mountain Oysters!”
“And what is your purpose for visiting New Zealand today?” the Christchurch immigration officer asks me when checking my immigration form. “To visit the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival” I answer. She laughs “Ahh okaaay. Well good luck! I wouldn’t eat half that stuff” and waves us through.
The Startled Worm Cafe-featuring earthworms among others!
The Stream Larvae stall
Shark anyone?
Our trip to New Zealand was almost a year in the making which is a long time for a person like me who has very little patience. Mr NQN and I were being hosted by the lovely people at Tourism New Zealand and the event that I really wanted to go to was the Wild Food Festival held in March each year thereby necessitating the year long wait. It was something that we had heard of on our last visit where we had heard that all sorts of weird and wonderful things were being served there. A few days before I find myself looking up their website to see what I am to face. I find myself googling “What is punga?” and “What are huhu grubs?”. There are also larvae, worm truffles, mountain oysters (aka sheep’s testicles), moonshine, stag meat patties, mutton birds, paua, locusts and grasshoppers but then there is “safer” fare like shark, venison, wild boar and whitebait.
The bugs on offer
From 10am-5:30pm this sunny Saturday, the small town of Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island, they will welcome just under 15,000 visitors to this one spot. Parties are encouraged with posters advertising “bring your party to our party” and dressing up is encouraged as we discover. The festival has attracted a lot of media attention in the past and has been featured in Playboy magazine (who claimed that the emu shells sold there were an aphrodisiac), The Amazing Race and features in Frommers Top 300 events in the world snaring second place 2 years ago (only pipped by Italy’s Slow food Festival). It pumps $2 million into the local economy and serves up an enormous range of food. One year they served up 10,000 Whitebait patties which is a South Island speciality and this year 300kg of whitebait was caught for the festival.
Pukeko (swamp hen) skewer
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| March 25th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
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