Day 60 - 1st March

Hi There, I just went through a pile of random notes and papers on my desk and found a flyer about local herbal teas that my friend Sue thoughtfully popped into my Birthday card in January. It is all about organic herbal teas grown and made in Port Noarlunga South. A huge variety is available for $5 per packet. Patrizia Bronzi medical herbalist pbronzi@adam.com.au 8327 0580 Mob 0427 594 279.

 Chillies
Here is a Sambal Oelek recipie that Aarod found on the internet http://www.grouprecipies.com/

SAMBAL OELEK

Ingredients:
1cup dried chillies
1tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

6 garlic cloves

Directions:
Place chilli in bowl and cover with boiling water
steep for 15-20 mins until soft
drain and discard water (good insect repellent spray for pests in the garden)
blend in food processor till smooth
if too thick, add more lemon juice
will store for 2 weeks in fridge.
 Aarod made this and we have been enjoying it for a week.

Jam Hunt
We have been missing jam, so Michael went hunting jam at theWillunga Farmer's Market on Saturday and came home with the following:

Lacewood Cumquat Marmalade, and Strawberry Blush jam. from Mclaren Flat - very yummy

Mt Magnificent Farm lemon spread - delicious
Glaetzer's Blueberry Hill Jam from Pages Flat Rd. Willunga - awesome
Hardings Fine Foods Almond spread from Willunga - superb
Brian's Olivemite - McLarenVale - always a favourite.

Sunday Lunch at the Kings (Formerly the Kings Head) on King William St. City.

http://www.thekingsbardining.com/

We finally have an opportunity to have lunch there after attending the exhibition opening of Aarod's soccer coach, Brian O'Malley at Kensington Gallery. Being a Sunday we could only choose from the Bar menu. See below, and the 100% South Australian wine list.

In the end we chose Lobo Cider - Very nice. http://www.loboapple.com/

 Aarod chose the King's burger, and we had the SA Iconic Pie floater, absolutely the best pie floater I have ever tasted, superb pastry, rich pea soup, chunky meat pie, delicious. Great friendly service too.

Sunday morning Michael's post surf fry up of garden veg and local mushrooms shared with surfing buddy Tresh.

The Weevils are back with a vengeance...sob....
Poor olive tree number one is getting hammered again by the ruthless munching of these little black bugs. We even bought a new torch (non-wind-up type to make our job easier and make sneaking up on them in the dark a less noisy affair. Last night we caught 5 on one poor ravished tree.Today on my walk I found a saviour - a piece of polyester insulation that these relentless winds we have been experiencing in the last few days had deposited on the fence. Today I make the cuffs to stop the buggers climbing.

Dinner on Saturday night was Phaedra's pork with garden salad and tahini dressing.

Saturday lunch a revelation in simple cooking! shallow fried potato chips with crushed sea salt and finely chopped rosemary out of the garden. Oh yeah... simply delicious on it's own, and heavenly when teamed up with Brad Nott's fabulous tomato relish um um! Thanks Brad - I need the recipie!

Day 53

More Zucchini Recipies
Here is a great Blog I came accross with more zucchini ideas for those of us who have teenage sons who are getting sick of zucchini and savvy about sussing out when the food on offer is created from it - even cake!
http://walnutspinney.blogspot.com/2008/08/zucchini-chips-great-way-to-use-up-lot.html

Baked zucchini chips
2 medium zucchini cut into1.5cm slices
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
generous pinch salt and black pepper
2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 245 degrees C
combine in a bowl bread crumbs, seasonings, and cheese. Put eggs into separate bowl, dip zucchini slices into egg whites and then coat with bread crumbs. Put zucchini slices onto baking tray and bake in oven for 5mins then turn over and bake for a further 5-10 mins or until brown and crisp.

Wild Yeast
A very cool website all about baking bread with a recipie for a sour dough starter see -
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/   So my next mission is to start a sour dough culture for replacing our store bought yeast from NSW. But it sounds a bit like babysitting, so I might wait until we run out of the dry yeast in our freezer.

Sad Fridge and Pantry

I just noticed how sad my pantry is looking at present, we are slowly eating and drinking our way through our stores, the spices are particularly low now, and we have run out of black tea (so sad for visitors).

The fridge is sad too, looking very diminished. I actually feel comforted when my pantry is full to the brim with products, and I feel uninspired when I open the fridge and it is 1/2 empty. I wonder if this is genetically coded from my parent's memories of enduring rationing during the war?

Speaking of rations reminds me of a conversation Michael and I are having about staple foods. Foods like sugar, salt, spices, cocoa, rice, flour, coffee, and tea, were available even before the industrial revolution, so they must have been stable enough to export by ship. In which case it is reasonable to assume that even after peak oil causes oil prices to soar enough to make air freight a thing of the past, there will still be shipping via sail boat, or some modern adaptation of wind powered vessel. In which case, we might not have to give these foreign items up, although they will be very expensive, especially spices, coffee, and cocoa.

Unexpected changes

The other unexpected change in our household is the lack of recycling and rubbish we are now producing. I noticed yesterday (rubbish day) that both of our bins were only half full. The last time we put out our recycling bin was 3 weeks ago, the rubbish bin 2 weeks ago. We are usually full of recycling after 2 weeks. I put this down to less packaging as we are purchasing less processed foods, no boxed cereals, no biscuits, no crisps, no corn chips or rice cakes, no dips, no crackers, no canned foods, less juice, no cordials, and no Lilydale free range chicken. I had not considered that less waste would be a side effect of our new diet, one more reason to stick with it!

Day 52

Newmans Horseradish

We had a family gathering in Langhorne Creek today  where we chatted with an old friend of the family, Sue Eckert who helped us out enormously with our project. She gave us some great tips about bread making without yeast - using potatoes instead, and sourdough. She also talked about using sugar beets as a sugar substitute, saying that they grow in the same conditions as beetroot. She recommended we get hold of a book about sustainable living and self sufficiency which sounds really good and has just been re - released. Sue then gave us directions to Newmans - a place we were wanting to check out so we went off  to taste their products.

         

Above are the value added products also sold there but not all grown there, they are also sold in many supermarkets. Horseradish dip, garlic, ginger,horseradish mustard, and beetroot and horseradish.

Above is the ex-cement mixer which is used to tumble and clean the horseradish after it is harvested.

For some reason I cannot format the photos today so here is Michael on the deck at Newmans with the horseradish plants in the background. He is holding some lovely wines that we purchased after tasting them. A nice bonus after finding out that only a few of their products were actually grown on site. The horseradish of course, the beetroot, and the grapes. I was disappointed to find out that the mustards are not grown there, and nor is the garlic or ginger. However, the wines were very nice! "Rusticana"

Home made Picalilli Relish

Using up excess zucchini and cucumber, chopped and salted

pressed down with large plate

weighed down with heavy objects for 24 hours

The final product ready to be stored for 6 - 8 weeks

cooked with vinegar, sugar and spices (our pantry stocks are now seriously low)

Day 51

Michael Pigs Out

1/2 a pig (35kg) arrives from the family farm. Michael's sister Phaedra has a farm near Kuitpo where she raises pigs, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Every now and then we buy 1/2 or 1/4 of an animal to put in the freezer. This keeps our costs down and means that we always have meat available and that we are less likely to buy take-away or eat out (when we remember to defrost it in time).The animals are farmed with minimal use of chemicals, and it is great to have a local supply of meat that has been well fed and cared for, and led a happy life. Phaedra is inspired by English chef and small holder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame. http://www.rivercottage.net/  He is renowned for his interest in wild foraging and utilising the entire animal.
Michael dons my apron and gets stuck into weighing out the pig into meal sized portions for freezing. It is important to have plenty of bags and a marker pen for this process otherwise you end up with huge lumps of frozen meat that you don't recognize - so you can't actually plan the meal until it is defrosted. The meat all looks so fresh, and the chops are huge! We have a Fisher & Paykel upside down fridge freezer which takes our pig portions easily with room to spare. The only other things in the freezer are leftovers, pumpkin, soup, pesto, and hummus.
I am spending more time in the garden and the kitchen, and less time writing my Blog!
I have baked more cakes and muffins in the last 7 weeks than I did in the past year, most of them containing variable quantities of zucchini. I have just run out of coconut, sultanas and raisins, and I am low on sugar. The cakes are getting less interesting as my supplies of spices dwindle. I am wondering what cakes I can make without sugar, sultanas, coconut, vanilla essence, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, chocolate, maple syrup, bicarb soda, baking powder, salt, or dates?

I have made a start on some chutney to use up and preserve some excess zucchini and cucumber. After looking at several recipies I have realised that it will be difficult to preserve our produce without sugar, salt, and spices. We might have to resort to freezing, and I am considering the purchase of a food dehydrator.
We still haven't harvested any almonds, which brings me to the question - Is it actually do-able to provide all of our own food? For example, if I am home full time, and growing as many vegetables as I can, raising my own chooks and eggs, cooking all of my meals, harvesting all of my fruit, avocadoes, olives, and vegetables, raising all of my seedlings, creating my own compost, worm wee/poo, liquid manures, and mulch. As well as baking my own bread, cakes and pies, making my own jams and pickles, pesto, and dips, brewing beer and wine, and curing meat, making sausages, and drying and smoking foods, making salt, drying pepper, cracking and roasting nuts, and going fishing. Would I actually have time for anything else............? 

Dinner tonight
Fresh home made  pasta from the Farmer's Market with sauce of Phaedra's bacon, garden basil, zucchini (of course) and spring onion, Paris Creek Quark, pepper and salt. Made by Michael - yum.

Day 45

The latest garden harvest

Over the past four days I have been immersed in all things foody, gardeny, and sustainable. I attended the Friends of the Earth's Plains to Plate Convergence at Uni SA. http://futureoffoodsa.ning.com/ Which  addressed issues of food security for South Australia. On Wednesday night was the opening forum, with great talks from Graham Brookman and Claire Nettle. During Graham's talk he mentioned that our planet can sustain 3 billion people yet we have 6. My question about that is, does that statistic calculate 3 billion vegans or omnivores? Does it take into account urban dwellers without gardens or rural dwellers with gardens? Or urban dwellers with community gardens? Does it take into account the amount of food dumped when farmers fail to achieve the price they want at market? Or food dumped because it is not the desired shape or size? The comments that Graham made on farmers and their struggle to make ends meet and the lack of young farmers willing to replace those retiring may herald the end of farming as we know it. If we can no longer rely on farmers providing our food we will have to grow our own. Not such a bad thing I muse, but will we get used to not eating wheat, grains, legumes, and meat? Can we live on exclusively what we can grow in our home gardens? I am wondering if there is any research on that?

 During the talks I am munching on some Willunga Almonds and I wonder if I am eating a whole tree's worth of them.  I wonder how many trees worth I would eat in a year? How many trees would I need to plant to feed my family for a year? After the talks we are offered Local fruit on the way out, delicious figs and nectarines from the Food Forest yum.

On the Thursday I went on a bus tour of community and school gardens, I eat some grapes grown at the Ridley Grove Community Garden, and then we move on to the Woodville High School garden where the very well established garden is bursting with food.

 Food security?

For morning tea we are offered a local feast of fruit including banana, & Kiwi fruit, chocolate brownies and chocolate muffins. I am dismayed as i did not bring my own food, having paid for meals for the whole conference, which were supposed to be local foods. I ask about the origins of the food and I'm told questions will be asked of Bliss Organic Cafe' and Organics to Go, who both catered for the event. I avoid the obvious foreign foods, eating watermellon and nectarines that look too small to be commercial and look longingly at the chocolate brownies and muffins! At lunch I am told that the caterers were not answering their phones, but that every measure had been taken to procure local foods. I decide I'd better just eat what is on offer, so I have some delicious vego rolls. I noticed that in the Woodville High Garden and the Fern Avenue Community Gardens there were very healthy banana trees, both with fruit, so I am keen to try growing bananas myself (unfortunately they don't like wind).

Bananas at Woodvill High School Garden

This ingenious worm farm is so cool because it keeps the worms cool in a heat wave, being super insulated as it is an old fridge!

I have never seen such a healthy crop of table grapes, these two photos were taken at the Blackwood Primary School Garden, note the home made individual bird nets, nice purple!

Some inspiring community gardens are:-

Fern Avenue Community Garden 18-20 Fern Ave. Fullarton Thursdays 9.30- 11.30. Working Bees 2nd Sat or Sun of each month. Call 8379 8941 anhinga@internode.on.net

Secateurs Community Gardening Group - Box factory garden - 59 Regent St. South, Adelaide.

8203 7749 Monday to Friday 4pm. - 9pm. Saturday 10am.-3pm.

St Andrews Garden - South Terrace Adelaide. secateurs.cg@gmail.com

The conference is inspiring and there are plenty of opportunities to connect with like minded people and have great conversations about food. There is also a sense of urgency for change, and I find some of the talks very depressing. Especially the ones on genetic engineering and the future of meat.

Fish

There is some heartening news about the Coorong, The Lakes and Coorong Fishery ( They fish cockles, yellow eyed mullet, flounder, and mulloway). are looking to promote sustainable fishing and working towards certification with the Marine Stewardship Council.

 

"They describe themselves as a 'Heritage' Fishery, a 'Wild fishery with a future' and in 1998, following the development of their excellent Environmental Management Plan, they approached WWF to work together towards Marine Stewardship Council Certification. Many of these fishers are third and fourth generation fishers and many of their children are becoming fishers also."

"The Marine Stewardship Council logo is an 'Eco-label' for fish products"

 

"I am a fourth generation fisherman, and my heart and soul is in this area. I want to make sure the environment remains intact for my grandchildren. This captures the essence of our Environmental Management Plan (EMP). The Southern Fishermen's Association is justifiably proud of it's world first EMP initiated by the fishers of this heritage fishery. With a daily presence and intimate knowledge of the Lakes and Coorong and our interdependence on the health of the system, we act as stewards of the resource on behalf of the community, while continually striving for ethical and sustainable ways of doing business."

Garry Hera-Singh President Southern Fishermen's Association.

When buying packaged fish look for the Marine Stewardship Council Logo.  http://www.msc.org/  info@msc.org

Again the food is disappointing for a locavore. On Friday for morning tea along with fruit and nuts, they serve pineapple slices, chocolate brownies, and slice with coconut. Lunch is lentil patties, rice balls, felafel, salads with walnuts. I get over it and just decide to eat everything as I signed up for the meals trusting that they would be local foods. Saturday we have more rice balls, things with coconut, but more information on where things are sourced (I appreciated that). I am starting to realise that the whole "Local" food concept is relative and open to interpretation. I acknowledge that the food was fabulous, I just don't understand why they could not have substituted other local fruits instead of the pineapples and kiwifruits, and had carob instead of chocolate etc. I know continuity of supply must be a big issue for catering, and apparently chocolate brownies is the Bliss signature dish...............

Yesterday we took some friends out to lunch at Lilla's Cafe' in Yankalilla because they claim to source their ingredients locally as much as possible. We chose from the menu items that were written in red, (very handy) and enjoyed fantastic meals, I chose free range chicken curry while Michael chose a free range chicken burger. We wanted to buy some of their Murray River Salt, but it was from Mildura. (I have been trying to source local salt without much luck. Michael is keen to try creating our own by evaporating sea water!) We chose two local wines, one from Port Willunga and one from McLaren Vale, I am a bit vague because I forgot to take notes.

On the way home we dropped in to do some tasting at the micro-brewery Lovely Valley Beverage Factory we tasted a few beers and some ginger beer. Then found out that the hops are sourced from NZ or Victoria! The ginger beer was local though, so we bought a case of 6, as it is the only local soft drink we have found so far. I was determined to find out if there were any local beers so I rang up the Cooper's Brewery  this afternoon to check where their ingredients come from, and  - the hops come from Victoria and the grains come from the West coast of SA, & Yorke Peninsula. They said you can't make beer without hops, so I did a Google search of Beer without hops and found a discussion site for home brewers. I guess we will need to brew our own if we want to drink beer this year - could have seen that one coming......

For a "beer without hops" discussion see http://beermakers.tribe.net/thread/8e2c2b34-8119-41c8-8e21-14190372aa29  - some of the recipies sound tasty, and Wormwood is abundant here.

Day 37

I have been corresponding with Mr Laucke regarding his flour products, and he has kindly agreed to allow me to publish his answers to my questions on my Blog.

Hi There Mark,


My family have taken on the challenge of sourcing all of our food from
within 160 km. of our home in Aldinga for the next 12 months.
We have been happily eating your flour and products made from your
flour, making the assumption that you would be sourcing your grains in SA.
However, I realise that is a big assumption. Would you please put my mind at rest, and let me know where you source your grains? Also where do you source your organic grains. Is there any product of
yours that is definitely not local to us (within 160km of Aldinga) that we should avoid?
Otherwise do you mix your grains together so it would be impossible to say exactly where your grain is from? Lastly, do you do tours of your milling plant?

Thanks for your support with these questions.

Bridget

Laucke, Mark wrote:



Bridget,

Bakers value both optimum raw material quality for each of their end products, and consistency at that level of quality.While we can and do source grain locally from the Strathalbyn silos and direct from local farms, there is insufficient suitable grain available locally to meet our needs. This means that, in drought years, we may only be able to source 10% of our requirements locally. In abundant years, there may be enough grain
grown locally, but the quality will not be suitable, and so we may be able to use only about 20% of our needs in total as local grain. Additionally, we make many different flour types for many different end product uses, and so we need to source a range of grain variety types that are uniquely suitable for a range of specific product. Due to soil types, rainfall, climate and so on, some varieties cannot be grown locally. For example, to make shortbread biscuits, unique wheat varieties must be grown near Bordertown because that area is cooler, has more rain, and a longer growing season than the grain growing areas near Strathalbyn. Similarly, we source many of our high protein bread making wheats from the Murray Mallee, with the areas above Lameroo and below the Murray being most suitable. Some wheats for making Hokkien Noddles are only
available from the Mid North such as the Clare Valley.

You may be interested to know that there used to be a mill at Aldinga, but it was a commercial failure because good quality wheat cannot be reliable grown in surrounding areas. Wheat is basically a desert plant, and does better in hotter and drier environments. Our certified organic grain milled at Strathalbyn typically comes from areas similar to conventionally grown grain, because while the farming methods may differ, the environment and grain plant varieties as suited to that environment are the same.

Using my tape measure on an SA map, I can see that probably the majority of the wheats that we source for our Strathalbyn Mill come from within 160 km of Aldinga, and virtually all within 220 km. What to avoid? We also mill flours and make Mixes at our mill site at Bridgewater-on-Loddon in Victoria. While some grain used at Bridgewater-on-Loddon would be sourced from within 160 km of Aldinga, most would not. As we specialise in some products by site, and transfer products from one site to the other for distribution and sale, if you were to contact us and enquire after a specific product, we could advise you whether it would meet your criteria, and what would be a suitable substitute. I am afraid that we do not conduct tours, as flour mills are full of busy machinery and are quite dangerous places.

I am not sure why you are embarking on this 100 mile diet, but I can caution you about nutrition based on soil types. For example, some soils are quite deficient in some minerals, and so food grown on those soils will also be nutrient deficient. We are very aware of this, and this is one reason we risk manage grain sourcing by not relying on grain sourced from just one area. Of interest, high rainfall areas are typically more deficient in key minerals than moisture deprived areas, because of both leaching and plant feeding effects. I am aware that some farmers have sourced all their food from their own farms believing that this was healthier, and have suffered severe nutritional deficiencies and have had markedly shorter and unhappier lives consequent to that short-sighted perspective.

Best regards,

Mark Laucke


-----Original Message-----



Hi Mark,

Thank you so much for your prompt and comprehensive reply. We have chosen to follow this diet in order to research where our food comes from, and to have a sense of what life might be like after petrol becomes prohibitavely expensive. You might be interested to read my Blog see
http://www.lifewithoutanchovies.blogspot.com/
We are particularly interested in where you source organic wheat for bread making flour, and bread premixes. I appreciate the valuable information that you have supplied and I think others would too. Would permit me to publish your replies on my Blog?

Thanks for your assistance,

Bridget


-----Original Message

Bridget,


I am happy for you to publish my explanations as made to you. I quickly perused my earlier reply, and made a couple of details changes to what is represented below, for sake of clarity.
Regarding the price of food as affected by petrol pricing: Grain in Australia does not follow the economics often expected by those persons who are not in the industry. A World market exist for grain, with the price set by competition and this is underpinned by costs of production and transport.
Australia exports several multiples of the quantity of grain consumed in Australia. Thus the world market (export) prices set the basis for the price that can be achieved in Australia. When the World price varies, this directly affects the price in Australia. It happens this way...
Grain may be worth $x in importing countries such as in the Middle East. For transport and handling it costs: $A to get it there by ship from Australia. $B to consolidate ship loads and get it on to a ship from an exporting grain terminal like the silo and port facility at Port Adelaide. $C to rail or road cart it from a country silo like Pinnaroo $D to receive it in to and store it at the silos at Pinnaroo $E to cart it from the farm to the Pinnaroo silo.
Thus the farmer receives $x - $(A+B+C+D+E) from an Export sale. This sets the benchmark for sale prices of grain ex farm to local users within Australia. Thus, local VOLUME of production (drought or surfeit) has very little to do with PRICING unless there is a severe drought, and there is consequently insufficient grain within Australia to meet Australia's needs. This is extremely rare. Therefore local fuel costs are not a direct contributor to local grain prices. Indirect, yes, because if fuel for ships, trucks and tractors is too expensive, farmers will have too many costs, will not make enough money, and will elect to NOT grow grain.
Many farmers can do little other than grow grain. Farmers are therefore forced to take a long term view to earnings regarding costs, grain yields and pricing. Regarding fuel costs, oil is used to make fuel and fertiliser - both very important to farmers. Oil and energy costs are normally directly linked, and prices are dictated by local and especially global supply and demand. In the long term, energy costs are on the increase as we all know, and this tends to raise costs and so the global price of grain. However, average pricing of local grain have not risen much over the last several decades, because the many of the energy costs that raise the world price of grain are deducted in $(A+B+C+D+E). This is unfortunate for Australian farmers, but fortunate for consumers.
Where it will all end, I do not know...

Best regards,

Mark Laucke

I am so impressed with Mark Laucke's attention to detail, and obvious passion about his work that it makes me want to buy his flour anyway! I feel comfortable consuming Laucke's flour as part of our diet experiment, and a little more enlightened about the wheat industry to boot. Thanks again Mark.

Day 36

Giant Zucchini genius recipie

                                                                                                                                                                                           The Giant zucchini was fine in the middle, not dried up as I had feared, so what to do with this enormous veg that won't fit in the oven? Slice it up and make it into a lasagne!

The bottom of the tray coated in olive oil, cover tray with zuc slices. Then cover that with spicy tomato sauce made with the second to last can of tomatoes in the pantry.

Then cover with cheese sauce, and another layer of zuc slices.

Then cover that with home made bread crumbs and grated Paris Creek cheese, pepper and salt.

Bake in the oven for a very long time, (may be wise to pre cook the zuc slices next time).







The end result on a plate - how well received was it by a 15 year old?
I was about to ask what he scored it out of 10 when he beat me to it with "Is there any more?" Ahhhh the best compliment! I did ask for a score out of 10 - Aarod gave it a 9 - go figure! I give it a 7.

Day 35

Zucchinis take over the world!
Dinner tonight,
zucchini quiche (eggs from our girls) and garden veg, followed by Zucchini, almond & chocolate cake (using Planet Organic cocoa from pantry). I am thinking about what to do with this huge Zucchini. Stuff with savoury mince & roast in oven or BBQ? (Not sure it would fit in our oven). Have a big cook-fest and make zucchini muffins, pancakes, and cake for freezer - these might be a nice treat later in the year when we have forgotten what chocolate tastes like. Does one ever forget the taste of chocolate?

Harvesting
This Zucchini was hiding underneath the plant, I know it is hard to believe, but I actually did not see it, it was holding up the entire plant, and was wedged tightly up against the side of the raised bed. They grow sooo fast! You have to be on top of them or they get like this monster! I hope it is not all dry and crusty inside. I will find out tomorrow. Watch this space!
The almonds are ripe in the village, and everywhere in the region for that matter. I keep thinking about harvesting some, and then find something so much more important to do (or so I tell myself). I wonder when harvesting food will seem as important to me - or more important in fact, than answering emails, cleaning the house, and all of the other things I do daily. In some wierd way it seems like recreation, being outside in the fresh air, communing with nature, chatting to neighbours along the way. I would like to make harvesting a daily part of my life actually, looking at the garden, noticing what is ripening, making a mental note to come and pick later. Watching and noticing what is doing well, what is not and finding out why. Getting in touch with my garden, developing an intimate relationship with my domain. I love eating from my garden, and I get excited when the foods I especially like such as asparagus, basil, rocket, and coriander, are in abundance.

Love's Harvest
I forgot to say that a lovely friend of mine, Amy, dropped off a delicious bowl of nectarines and peaches the other day, it is so special, receiving a gift like that. Knowing the daily effort that has contributed to watering, mulching, weeding, & nurturing the fruit makes it extra special.
This evening one of my favourite neighbours came over to harvest some thyme for his dinner. I just Love that about the village, I offered to give him a cutting for his garden, and then said, "No don't grow it, you can just come here & get it".
There are so many herbs in my garden, more than I could possibly use, it is great when I can share them.

day 34

Hungry and surrounded in foreign food
I got caught out today with an impromptu shopping trip to Marion. I was very hungry after a morning yoga class, I could not face asking all of the questions about food so I decided to go to Woolworths supermarket as at least stuff is labelled. After about 1/2 an hour wandering down the isles with an empty basket, I started to dispair about the future of food in South Australia. All I could find was strawberries from Lobethal, cheese & yoghurt from Paris Creek, (Thank God for Paris Creek BD Farm!) and apples from Lenswood. None of which was particularly appealing for a quick lunch on the run. I looked for local nuts in desperation, and found a packet of Woolworths Pistachios, labelled as "Produce from Australia" on reading the label I found that they were actually grown in USA and packaged in Australia. I informed the management of this misdemeanor, and grabbed a Farmer's Union Iced Coffee on the way out, giving myself a hard time about the coffee beans.

Next I tried a fruit and veg store next door, Ahhh.- some SA food. A huge range of Beerenberg products, figs from Pooraka, SA tomatoes, Adelaide mushrooms, Buzz honey, and many other value added products too. I found dried apricots packed in Pooraka which completed my lunch, along with an apple I had in my bag.


Food For ThoughtI was imagining how empty the supermarket shelves would be without the imports, and the huge selection of foods packaged and distributed in NSW and VIC. Where are all of the local foods????
I wonder if consumers started asking for local food more often if it would influence the supermarket shelves?
Maybe the small producers get treated too badly by the supermarkets so they choose to sell to independents. Or they just don't have the quantity of products to fill demand from supermarkets. Then if hospitality businesses need to secure a reliable source of product, they find it easier to buy from large companies which can guarantee a steady supply of products. As consumers, do we need to be less picky about what we eat, get less annoyed when things are no longer on the menu because they are out of season?
If chefs and consumers start demanding local produce, wouldn't that create a huge shift in supply and demand; and flow on to effect distribution practices?
I have so much to learn about how it all works, I am hoping that the Plains to Plate convergence next weekend will shed some light for me.

Being prepared
I remember a time when Aarod was little when I would not leave the house without damp face washers, water, fruit, and snacks. I can see that I will need to get back into the habit of doing that. Michael is making porridge for breakfast now, (we cannot buy Nutragrain or Wheet bix, or any other cereals or museli ) and making his lunches, he is also making bread. Aarod has been banned from school bakery runs just when he was enjoying the extra treat that only the high school children are allowed to access! Things are starting to get real now. The good news is that Michael found a new bottle of Maple syrup in the back of the pantry- oh Yeah!

Fruitful Encounters
Today I was doing some house hunting and one townhouse I looked at had lemons hanging over the fence from the neighbour's tree. I grabbed 3 windfalls from the ground, we have been missing lemons - what a treat!
Also as I walked home from the bus stop this evening I plucked 3 ripe peaches from one of the trees along my path. I appreciate these gifts from nature so much more now, and I am noticing that wherever I go, I identify fruit trees. I actually feel somehow safer, and happier when I can see fruit trees around me - I think I am becoming obsessed with food.

Day 33 (Feb 2)

"Having solar power, getting a hybrid car or reducing your air travel is great, but the main game is food - contributing up to 30% of our personal carbon footprint" Peter Kearney

I found the following entry on Cityfoodgrowers blog and thought it well worth copying here.

"Anecdotal evidence from studies in a number of developed countries over the last three years indicates that our food choices contribute up to 30% of our personal carbon footprint. Although the science around measuring food carbon footprint has a way to go, you can appreciate how this footprint is possible when you look at the results of a very comprehensive study done for Ceres Community farm in Melbourne, Australia during 2008. The study examined all the contents of a normal family shopping basket for one week and found the contents had travelled 70,000 kilometres. That’s one family for one week!

For most people, their food carbon footprint is higher than any other personal source such as, energy or travel. So having solar power, getting a hybrid car or reducing your air travel is great, but the main game is food and yet where is the conversation about the impact of our food choices on global warming?"
Peter Kearney – http://www.cityfoodgrowers.com/

Good News from L'Abruzzese Pasta

They do indeed use Laucke's flour (Strathalbyn) in their pasta products Yay!  - Available at The Singing Cricket Food Co-op, Willunga, and Foodland, Seaford. (They do other grains such as spelt but that is not grown in SA.)

  

The Sleepover

Having 7 teenagers over for a sleep-over last Saturday night had me baking muffins as we had no snacks in the house apart from rice cakes. Little did I realise that these teenagers only eat junk food, if anything at all; and bring their own lemonade, tim tams, chips, BBQ shapes and milky ways.

They did eat moderate helpings of a BBQ roast dinner, and muffins for breakfast, I guess that not all teenagers have insaitiable appetites. Maybe they self catered because they were worried that "local diet" meant lots of lettuce leaves? 

The Evil Weevils

I want to share a success story with you about our olive trees. They had been eaten badly by a bunch of evil weevils, to the point where 2 of the 4 were looking very sad, almost dead, with maybe 2 badly munched leaves left. I sought advice from Perry's Orchard where we purchased the trees. He immediately recommended a nasty chemical spray, or some sort of mechanical barrier like a cuff on the trunk, as the critters climb the trunk at night to chew the leaves. We refused the spray (as we live in an EcoVillage - but would have refused anyway) so he suggested the cuff or to go out with a torch at night and pick off the bugs as they are nocturnal, but easily disturbed and will drop to the ground and hide in the mulch. The cuff idea wouldn't be too successful as they could climb the tree stakes and the deck palings, so we did the nightly rituals. I was very sceptical, especially as they were so "easily disturbed".

Well if you have a weevil problem, take heart because - our weevils were pretty easy to catch, not even disturbed by our wind up torch noise! We went nightly for about two weeks, it is really a job for 2 people, one to hold the torch, one to hold the collection jar and lid, (they do try to climb out, and can climb glass sides well - not sure how effective the cuffs would have been). The first night we collected 6 weevils, many of which were on one poor tree. At the end of two weeks (with 1 week hiatus while we were in Byron) we found none. It was so satisfying to deplete the population of evil weevils in such a short period of time. Even more satisfying was seeing one of the  most effected trees start to send out beautiful new leaves all along it's trunk around the full moon.

Yesterday I gave the end tree that I was pretty sure was dead, a last supper bucket of water with fish emulsion and seaweed and a couple of drops of rescue remedy. As a last resort I gave the poor tree a bit of Reiki, and lo and behold, I saw a tiny leaf about 1/2 way up it's trunk. I will keep giving it TLC, and hope it survives through the summer.

Left the most healthy of the olive trees

Below part of the dead weevil collection

Below right  the miraculous new leaf

Left  the abundant new growth

 Local Diet = Healthy Diet ?

This leads me to some musings I was having as I walked on the beach, I have been thinking that this new diet is not that healthy because we are eating so much meat, dairy, and wheat, whereas prior to January 1st, I was trying to minimize all of these components. Then again, I wonder if that is offset by the nutrient levels in our food? As we are eating foods with fewer hours/days spent in refridgerated transport, on supermarket shelves, and in cans, perhaps we are eating even more healthily than before? I felt a bit better with that thought, and started to wonder about the other hidden benefits of this diet that will be revealed during this year.

Information Overload

Looking back over the last month, there is quite a lot of information and I am wondering about keeping an easily navigable database. I am not sure how this would work, or how it could be linked to the Blog. I will look into a spread sheet link or something. Any suggestions are most welcome. 

Dinner Tonight

Tonight will be a pasta treat with cheese sauce and home grown tomatoes (that have finally ripened) and basil. I planted most of my vegies on the south of the house to protect them from the harsh north winds and ferocious summer sun - they do survive well in the heat waves of 40C plus but don't ripen so readily. Next year I will plant the tomatoes and basil on the north, the lettuces and coriander on the south, and see how they go.

L'Abruzesse spaghetti, Paris Creek cheese, garden tomato and basil.