Ducks in a row
On a sizzling hot summer’s day, good icecream is a great idea. And the place to go for locally made frozen treats is right here in my neighbourhood: Duck Island, on the corner of Grey St and Cook St in Hamilton East. Duck Island's quirky, playful icecreams are fast...
More than an apple a day
This is a great time for backyard apples. I’ve just started my first brew of home made cider vinegar from windfall apples. Both my apple trees are doing well, and other people’s are doing even better. If I had to pick a favourite fruit, it would be apples. They are...
Out of the box
The vege and fruit box arrived this morning. The fridge is stuffed to overflowing, especially the vegetable drawer. But it won’t be for long. This post is about what happened to all that food. I love getting a box of produce delivered. It narrows down the choices with...
Laughing at vegetables
This week we got a big laugh out of the Ooooby box. Kohlrabi is one of those things that reminds you that the universe has a sense of humour. Something I’ve learned through growing my own veges (not very skilfully) is they often come out looking funny. Funny ha-ha....
The redcurrant challenge
I went for a cup of tea with my friend Clare Jackson and came home with a kilo of beautiful, freshly picked redcurrants and a challenge. “I want to see what you do with them,” she said. Redcurrants are ripe at Christmas here in Hamilton. They’re a Christmassy sort of...
O is for organic
This post is about a subject that’s very close to my heart. Food quality! Good food that’s fresh, high in nutrients, and free from toxic spray residues. Sadly, these are things we can’t take for granted in our world of industrial agriculture. And the main way we have...
A handful of raspberries
Today I picked a handful of raspberries to have with my breakfast. This gives me an amazing feeling of wellbeing. I haven’t always had raspberries in my life. I spent my childhood in Papua New Guinea, where we had wonderful tropical fruits galore: fresh pawpaw,...
Perfect strawberries
In my search for the perfect strawberry, I went to talk to strawberry growers Grant and Heather Kane, at their farm south of Cambridge. Kane’s strawberries have a great word-of-mouth reputation. They are reliably excellent in quality and they are often sold out at the...
Buried treasure
Just before the first new potato harvest, I paid a visit to Richard and Judy Cato, whose superb potatoes have been a highlight of the local farmers’ markets. We walked out into one of Richard’s potato fields. They could do with some rain, he said. This has been a very...
Great goats
The latest news in my household is a bottle of delicious Wairere Goat Creamery milk. Up till now there’s been no goat’s milk for sale in local shops, and I’ve wondered why. I was delighted to speak with Claude Capon, the man behind this new Waikato business supplying...
Why local food?
It’s taken me a while to get around to writing this post, which goes to the heart of why the Waikato Foodbasket exists. Here are three big reasons why I think buying and eating local food is important: 1. Local food is generally the freshest in season, because it...
Eat your weeds
I have to admit that my garden contains more than a few weeds. I don’t like using poisonous sprays, and I’m always looking for better ways to manage all these uninvited plants. So when I heard that edible weed expert Julia Sich was running a workshop in my...
In season: watercress
Fresh at the farmers’ market this weekend: wonderful, peppery wild watercress from the Roto-o-rangi free-range eggs stall. And there was also some in the Ooooby box, so we’ve had two watercress salads this week. Watercress is a cousin of garden cress, mustard and...
Keeping kombucha
Kombucha is turning up all over the place these days. There are bottles of kombucha in the drinks chiller of the Hamilton East Binn Inn. (All the way from the United States!) But it’s easy to make it at home. And if you’re brewing it yourself, it counts as local...
Remembering the leeks
Leeks are a low-profile cousin of onions and garlic. It’s easy to dismiss them, but they are easy to grow at home, and they go really well in all kinds of slow food. Leeks have a sweet, oniony flavour - an “x-factor” that gives depth to many classic recipes. My...