Buying Local Produce - A Visit to the Market

Last Thursday (28 August), the hubby and I got up early and visited the Byron Bay organic market. It was well worth the early start! A steaming cup of locally grown Myocum coffee (beans grown and roasted by hand by this single family) and a roll of Bangalow smoked bacon and organic egg with tomato salsa easily chased away the morning chill.

Located in a local oval, the farmers and growers set up their stalls in two fairly orderly lines, and the produce was incredibly good - fresh, in season and affordable. It was obvious that broccoli, kale, tatsoi, turmeric, ginger (but only for a fortnight more), and strawberries were in season.

I loved the fact that some stalls sold only a single thing - as in just eggs, or just sprouts, or just limes (more on this later), or just homebaked sourdough bread (in wheat and spelt flour), and quite unusually, just sugarcane juice. Well, this is sugarcane country after all. There's nothing quite like freshly squeezed sugar cane juice with extra ginger - not overpoweringly sweet as I expected it, and another first time food/drink ticked off my tasting list.

Speaking of limes, these babies are incredibly expensive at the moment - up to $35.00 a kilo in shops, and around .50 cents each at the growers market. We had a chat with the stall owner selling only limes and asked why it's so expensive, and it's because it's not in season. Out of 900 trees they have, she said they would be lucky to get maybe 20 kilos of limes in the off season. We also tried and got some of their handmade freshly squeezed lime juice cordial, with a little bit of sugar syrup as the sole preservative. Only in local markets!

We rounded up our numerous purchases with a taste and buy of some local cheeses and again all handmade and from a head of 100 cows milked twice daily - yummy haloumi cheese and incredible marinated fetta cheese. It was also nice to be able to share one of my recipes with the cheese makers - roasted chicken with labne or yoghurt cheese.

10 Tips for Holiday Cooking

Here are my top 10 tips for cooking on holidays:

1. Pack your own knives. If you are a keen cook, then you know what I mean, and I know your knife will be sharp like mine. Nothing is worse than trying to slice a tomato with a blunt knife and this is usually the kind that you find in holiday houses. Remember to pack the knives safely - wrapping them in a clean teatowel is sufficient. For the curious, I use a Furi East-West knife (non scalloped) bought 10 years ago - it's light yet makes quick work of hard stuff, sharpens beautifully, and sits nicely in my small hand.
   
2. Take some pantry essentials with you - my box would include:
   - olive oil (extra virgin & light or spray oil)
   - other oils - a flavoured olive oil (I am besotted with Pukara garlic oil) and sesame oil
   - selection of vinegars (balsamic, white and red wine vinegars)
   - soy sauce (dark, light and sweet - kecap manis)
   - selection of dried spices (I pack a small baggie of Herbie's spices)
   - sea salt (Maldon) and black pepper mill
   - some dry goods that are hard to find in a country town (I take Israeli couscous & quinoa)
   
3. Pack an esky with some frozen meats as this also acts as an ice pack for some of the perishables you're taking for the first couple of days in the house (e.g. milk!)
   
4. Plan for your first night's dinner and first breakfast at the very least and take the ingredients with you. It saves doing a shop when tired from a long drive and when all you want is to put your feet up for that first beer or glass of wine.
   
5. If you can, find out how well equipped the kitchen is. You can talk to the real estate agent or the house owner. I have been known to take a wok (doubles as a frypan) and a slow cooker like a Le Creuset French oven specially for long slow braises in winter).
   
6. Talk to the locals and find out where they shop. I ask for where to buy fruit and vegetables, a good delicatessen, fresh seafood, butcher and good restaurants.
   
7. Check out the local markets and/or shop local. This is a great chance to buy produce that's close to where the growers/farmers are. And if you tend to get excited by beautiful and fresh produce like I do, take a list of the essential stuff you have to buy to curb your spending!
   
8. Take a few choice recipe books and magazines, but don't go overboard. You are on holidays after all. Stay seasonal.
   
9. Consider investing in a Trangia or similar camp cooking implement. I was a bit hesitant, but hubby convinced me it was a good idea. The first time we boiled water to make plunger coffee (yes, yes, no instant coffee for me) and re-heat our lunch while on the road absolutely convinced me it was worth it. Great for picnics too.
   
10. And finally, be flexible and creative. It's not the end of the world if you can't find certain ingredients. Substitute or change the recipe to suit what you've got - it might just turn out to be a good result! This does get easier with time and experience.

That's about it. Happy holiday cooking!

Cooking on Holidays in a Beach House

Well, o.k. - here I am. Yet another food blog to add to the thousands of other food blogs in this thing called the In-terrr-net. So why am I doing it?

Actually, it's purely for selfish reasons - I've now filled a shelf-ful of notebooks with our weekly menus since I started writing down what I will be cooking for dinner around nine years ago. I have now filled four Kikki K recipe folders with cut-outs from Delicious, Gourmet Traveller, and other food mags with so many more recipes tagged and awaiting cutting and pasting. And since August 2007, I've been seeing a nutritionist and have been keeping track of what I eat, and have recently discovered the ease of doing this on Excel spreadsheets.

So I've been thinking - if I'm already keeping track of what I cook and eat, then I might as well start this blog which I've kinda been planning but have been putting off. And this is a good a time as any to start it - we're on holidays for 10 days in this gorgeous beach house in Byron Bay, and thought it would be useful to share some tips on planning and shopping for holiday cooking. Over the years, the hubby and I have preferred to take our hols with our two golden Labradors, Baxter and Georgie, which meant a lot of holiday houses that allow doggies. Travelling with dogs also means a lot of cooking in, which suits us just fine. This house we're in is by far one of the best places we've stayed in, and in fact this is our second time here.

It certainly helps to have a very well equipped kitchen, but you can still whip up some pretty good stuff if you plan ahead and if you take a few essentials with you - I can just hear the hubby spluttering over my use of the term "few", but I count a mere single box of pantry essentials and an esky a far cry from the five boxes of "essentials" I took for a 5-day holiday many many years ago. But I digress.

So for my very first food post series, I'll be sharing my tips for holiday cooking, the menu I've planned for our 10 days of beach house bliss, and some of the recipes that we'll be cooking. So until tomorrow, happy eating and may your belly always be full of good food!