West Fest

When I was young, we used to visit my great-uncle, who had a dairy farm. My mum grew up on a dairy farm, and used to tell us tales of scones and clotted cream. So this Saturday past, I took myself off to Weston's annual village fair, West Fest. For a SOLE foodie, it was possibly the ultimate 'mess in my rompers' experience.

There was bread.... REAL bread.... crusty and yeasty and fresh, a far cry from the sweet, white crap I get in PNG. I gorged on olive bread, baguette, cob. It was wonderful!!

Due to the ridiculous OH&S laws in OZ, We're unable to get raw milk cheese. No such ridiculous nanny-law here in the UK, so I stocked up on roquefort, stilton and Jersey blue.

Weston is the home of proper cider.... Somerset cider... apple and pear. Scrumpy, pale or dark.

I may never drink wine again!

And then there are the strawberries.. only just coming into season, in time for the Henley regatta.

I saw a proper May Pole, missed the Morris dancers, sat under an ancient celtic cross eating blackberry icecream, and then met friends for a pint at my new local.

Off to Bath today, to pick up some pressies for the kids, and to 'take the waters'

CFD/AFD

No, it's not some trendy new diagnosis of children who obsessively wash their hands while screaming that they have nut allergies, it's my new mantra.

And, as every good Buddhist knows, mantras MUST be abbreviated to TLA's (which in itself is a joke, three letter acronyms? geddit!!)

So, this weekend, past, My delicious friend, Peakie and I embarked on my very first Blonde Ambition Tour.

Peakie is (sometimes, even erstwhile) blonde, as are some of her besties, and they all get together on various girls weekends, in the country and overseas, and each one of these girls weekends/weeks are referred to as a Blonde Ambition Tour.

Very similar to my Namaste Bitches sisters and our Florida Tour last year

(pee ess, The Namaster Bitches 2011 Tour is to the UK to see THE OPENING NIGHT OF THE FOO FIGHTER'S WORLD TOUR.. more on that later!)

And what happens on a Blonde Ambition Tour STAYS on.... well, you know the rest.

Except this time, we decided to be a gang, The Blonde Ambition Gang, which of course, leads me back to the topic of this post.

BAG.

Thus we all had to have gang names.

Mine, I am proud to announce, was Lemon Iced-T (BAG). And rocked the SHIZZ out of the Torquay Caravan Park. We TOTALLY  played Lilly Allen's "Fuck You" really loud. Like on 4. At about 6.30pm.

We were ROCK STARS, man, we kinda slumped around that Caravan site causing fear and havoc in the hearts of all who saw us. Although we replaced the hoodies and bandanas and low slung jeans for one piece bathers with built in spandex support and sarongs, we were FEARSOME, dude. Our slumping gang skillz even had a zed.

We even had someone knock on the caravan door at 10.30 and tell us to "Keep it down" . It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

Now, Girls weekends, I've had a few. But I can honestly say that I have never come home from a weekend having only existed on chicken twistees, blue cheese, havarti and cowboy shots.

Seriously. That is all I consumed for an entire weekend. Maybe a few random CC's in there, and there is a vague memory of a handful of BBQ Shapes. And possibly a mouthful of  2 minute noodles.

Did you know that you can re-use the pre-fab Cowboy shot glasses, and make BETTER ones? Like with Baileys and Scotch?

Believe me, after your 17th, they taste AMAZING!

Tip for young players?

Make sure you get the angle of the weird little curvy plastic divider in said pre-fab shot glasses right, or it just dribbles out of the side of your mouth, and you look drunker than you actually are.

And you waste alcohol, which is a violation of both BAT and NBT rules.

So, this past few days have been deemed CFD/ AFD's

Cheese Free Day and Alcohol Free Day.

Quite seriously, if you put a wodge of  Pule in front of me, I'd just about vom.

So, Sunday night, after the above weekend, I had this:



Tofu and chive Asian dumplings, with wilted choy sum, tomato and cucumber.

I could actually feel the nutrients returning to by blood stream and forcing the chicken twistie badness from my liver.

I'm too old for this. 

Jells PArk Farmers Market.

Well.. on a cold and wet Melbourne day, young Joon and I headed off to the inaugural Jells Park Farmers Market. You enter from the south side of the park, via Ferntree Gully Road. The council, in its wisdom, is doing road works at the entrance at the moment, so actually finding the entrance is a bit of a nightmare, but that will be a temporary set back. We got there at 8.15, and parking was plentiful and free.

There were about 20 stall set up, and all the stall holders I spoke to were friendly and cheerful.. and knew their stuff. They were all very accommodating to me, asking to take photos and pestering them with my tricky SOLE questions!

First stop was Nar Nar Goon Fruit:



Nar Nar Goon is probably only 20 mins from Glen Waverley, and the stall had a good selection on in-season fruit, both first and second quality, and had samples for snackage.



Next stop was Jeni's Eggs.



Owner Adrian guarantees that his chooks are not de-beaked, free to roam, hormone and antibiotic free, and are fed natural grains, as well as being free to scratch around and eat natural chook tucker.



I think they're prices are excellent and definitely on par with a similar quality egg bought at the Spewpermarket! We'll be having Jeni's eggs for breakky, in fact Furry is working on that right now!

They're from Yabba North and can be contacted on 0448 328 418 or jeniseggs@bigpond.com

Next stop was Cocoa Rhapsody for some NASAA certified and guaranteed Fair Trade chocolate.



All their chocolates are hand crafted in Melbourne, and their farmers market special contains 70% Mount Buffalo hazelnuts



Their web site is wwwcocoarhapsody.com.au, or you can call Floyd Millar on 0407 290 176 or email at floyd@cocoarhapsody.com.au

Next visit was the WE LOVE CAKE flavour station (0432 588 348, email at flavour-station@hotmail.com). Joon purchased their choc mud cake



and a date loaf which apparently you can heat and serve just like a pudding.



Joon was having morning tea with a friend, and I will get back to you with a review when we catch up next week.

Next stop was:



Boosey Creek Cheese is from Northern Vic, just out from Katamite, and is run by three generations of the Cameron family (sorry guys, the photo of both of you didn't turn out! Maybe next market when my hands aren't shaking with anticipation!)

Newborn calves are hand reared, and then left to the open paddock until they can be milked. All cheese are made on the family farm from the Fresian-Holstein herd



I samples the Oma's favourite, a gouda-style cheese with cumin.



But what I walked away with was a bag of Burramine Blue, the cheese that won the DIAA Victorian Dairy Product Silver medal this year!



What happened with the last batch was, that on tasting, it was found to be luscious and flavourful, but too hard.. so the Cameron's grated it up and sell it in bags for $5.00. I am planning a pork roast with sauerkraut, apple, walnut and blue cheese stuffing!

Boosy Creek Cheese is at 734 Grinter Road, Boosey, 3730, email is info@booseycreekcheese.com.au or call 0409 307 320.

On to The Gourmet Provider (mathesonclan@yahoo.com.au)



They provide a range of meats and cheeses from King Island, Lilydale free-range chickens, Otway free-range pork and Timboon farm bred rabbits. The couple behind the jump were just lovely and none of my pesky SOLE questions stumped them... we got talking so much, I forgot to get any of the pork, and nearly walked away without paying for my one purchase!!



What I DID buy was a Timboon farm bread, hormone-free rabbit. They come frozen, as TGP get a once a week delivery. At $14 a bunny, I want the very best, and was provided with a recipe sheet. Look out for Sauteed Rabbit with Sour Cream and Bacon next week! Poor Joon, who keeps bunnies as pets couldn't even stand to be next to me, as I made my purchase! She did however, get a slab on King Island beef for roasting, and at $20, was outstanding value.

Next stop was



Little Creek Cattle Company. I had heard much about these guys, and was chuffed to find them at the Market. They are from Coldstream, in the Yarra Valley, which is about 45 mins from Glen Waverley. I purchased a topside roast for $14! Thet are members of the Yarra Valley Regional Food Group and guarantee no hormones and no organophosphates. All meat is dry aged and they deliver to your door. You will find them at http://www.littlecreekbeef.com and on 0419 887 712. I did the topside roast for dinner last night, just a plain old-fashioned roast with jacket potatoes, kumara and vine tommies and it was divine! The texture of the meat was silky and tender, and the flavour was outstanding!

I was also thrilled to find The Convent Bakery from Abbotsford was there, and I bought a ciabatta. I had heard so much about the quality of their wood fired oven bread, and I wasn't disappointed! The ciabatta was dense and chewy, and will be perfect with my egg and bacon breakfast that Furry is currently conjuring up!



The last purchase was from Blue Bay Cheese, a very sharp Cheddar.. it was divine, but pricey at $9.00 for 250g

So here are my goodies!!



Next market is September 20. Mark it in your diaries and GO THERE!!!

Bloggers Banquet.. the recipes

Fig, Blue Cheese and Caramelised Onion Tart.

Take 3 large red onions, slice very fine on a V slicer. Sautee until very golden in unsalted butter. While they're bubbling away, use some of the melted butter to grease a large baking tray. Divide a packet of good quality phylo pasty into 1/4's. On this tray, lay a 1/4 of a packet of phylo pastry. Brush with melted butter. Roll the 3 remaining 1/4's into sausages (for the sides of the tart. 2 rolls will be exactly long enough and one will need to be cut in 1/2)

**NOTE** In all the excitement, I forgot to brush the rolls as I went, as I was rolling them up... This meant when I served it, the sides of the tart were dry and a bit nasty. Note to self.. brush butter as you roll!!

Place sides on base to form tart case. Brush with melted butter.

When onions are done, taste test for sweetness. Mine weren't as sweet as I had hoped, so I added a little home made Balsamic reduction. Spread the onions evenly over the tart case. Sprinkle with fresh thyme (from my own garden). Top with crumbled blue cheese (in this case Red Hill Cheese's "Granny's Blue" ), 8 figs, (also from my garden) quartered and a further drizzle of Balsamic reduction.

Bake at 180C for 20 minutes until pastry is golden. Allow to cool to room temp and serve.

Now THIS recipe was the funniest event of BB II! I had defrosted a rolled roast of lamb from Rutherglen Lamb, just incases we didn't have enough food (like, riiiiight, as my 16 year old daughter would say!) My theory was, that if I didn't use it for BB, we had gorgeous friends out from Canada, so I'd use it sometime over the weekend.

So there is was, sitting forlornly in the fridge.

And as I watched each new blogger come in, each seemingly carrying ANOTHER SWEET TREAT, I got more and more aprehensive! Thanh and his lemon/white chocolate/coconut cake (although he did bring poor man's potato's as well!), Vida with her Oblatna, Michael with his Chocolate & cream cheese Brownies (Thank goodness for Cindy's tofu balls!), Jon with his chocolate ganache tarts, Duncan with his macarons, Claire's Layered freeform cheescake with stewed cherries, rhubarb and hazelnut brittle..

Agnes was my only hope, and she bought smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, and carmelised onion tarts!

Hurriedly, I grabbed some random ingredients, a couple of anchovies, some sundried tomatoes, a woj of fetta, some black olives and stuffed the roll with said ingredients, I grabbed some fresh oregano from the garden and mashed it with some olive oil and smeared the whole shebang with it.

Popped it into the wood fired oven for about 2 hours and voila!!

Let's do it again some time, yes??


Photos courtesy of Jon from Melbourne Foodie.

Jessica Seinfeld Cheese?

It's blue, Capt'n, but not as we know it.

Ahh, stinky blue cheese. You either love it or you hate it. I am in the former category. I love all things stinky and bleu. From Roquefort to Stilton, to King Island blue.. if it's stinky and fulla mould, I'll eat it.

I am waiting for my figs to ripen so I can indulge in a fig, blue cheese and honey tart. I get all unnecessary about melted blue cheese and walnuts, and positively "private moment" over the notion that one day, somewhere in the world, I WILL try Gorgonzola.

My love of blue cheese is directly inherited from my mum, Mater Beige. I can remember going to a conference at Phillip Island (circa 1974?) with her and The Hobbit, where she would be wearing all these gorgeous clothes and smelling of Le Train Bleu, and after a restaurant dinner she'd always order the cheese platter. And it would always have some blue on it.

That was back in the 70's and I shudder to think on what quality the actual cheese was. The Hobbit hated stinky blue cheese, so Mater Beige would share it with me.

I was hooked at the first bite.

So, to the present.

Furry HATES stinky blue cheese. The very idea of eating something "mouldy" makes him shudder. He refutes all arguments based on mushrooms. being a fungus. He refutes all arguments based on Ranch Dressing. He refuses to put anything in his mouth that smells like "the change rooms of the Noble Park footy club after the U16 have won a game in the rain".

So, with this in mind, I recently came across this cheese. And the first thing about it... it doesn't LOOK blue. It looks, for all intents and purposes, like a bog standard block of cheddar.

On opening the pack, there is not that immediate hit of piquancy, that pungent blue aroma that us aficionados inhale a la "Ratatouille". To the previously initiated, there is certainly a blue note, but nothing that would particularly scare a blue virgin (is that an oxymoron??)

I plated this with some grapes, some quince paste, a "real" blue, a real cheddar and a brie. And served it Jessica Seinfeld-like, to Furry.

It cuts like an aged cheddar, crumbly and sharp. The first impression is of an ok quality cheddar.. a good supermarket quality one, if you will. The first note is cheddar-y, bitey, sharp but then arises from the back of the palate all those things us blue lovers enjoy. The *almost* uric/ammonical acid note, the sour/tangy back-of-the-throat note. The nutty/salty flavours shine through on the swallow, leaving both the cheddar AND the astringent blue quite distinctly in the mouth.

And Furry loved it!! Poo-poohing the Gipsland blue cheese, he positively DEVOURED the "normal cheese" sitting right next to it!!

And while NOT a devotee of Jessica and her methods (although I admit I HAVE employed them in the past), I didn't feel one iota of guilt about not revealing the true nature of this cheese. What I felt was more akin to a smug gloating, actually.