jamjar
From: Melbourne, Australiaabout me
Michelle (jamjar) is a kiwi living the urban dream in Melbourne, Australia. She works for an interactive agency as an Interface Developer. She didn't like food for a very long time, but rediscovered a joy of putting simple, fresh tastes into her mouth thanks to Jamie Oliver's accessible recipes, beautiful food-photography, and awesome Tefal wok/frying pan! She is crazy-go-nuts about blogging - and can also be found at thejamjar.comYou say tomato, I say potato.
My tomato plant has two tomatoes slowly ripening on it. The plant looks geriatric and frail, but it still spits a new shoot or two out each day and actually has flowers on it at the moment.
This weekend I've decided it's time to say goodbye to the plant. I would like to plant another one later in the year, but in the meantime, I read this http://sunnyo.blogspot.com/2008/04/grow … atoes.html
and wondered if it were feasible to do inside.
Beautiful Tomato
oh how i love thee..let me count the waysnom nom nom nom...hehhhe!!
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Two Thousand and Great!
It's a new year - HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yes, I can still say that even though I'm a bit late - it's still January.
I flew home to Auckland, New Zealand to have Christmas with my family. My son was kind enough to give me Jamie At Home for Christmas, and after looking through the pages in the morning, decided to cook the slow cooked lamb for Christmas dinner that evening.
It is such a simple recipe that I could do that on Christmas Day - decide to do it then do it! I was lucky that there was a leg of lamb in the fridge though - a vital ingredient of the dish.
The lamb cooked all afternoon while I watched the whole first season of Dr Who. I've grown up with the Doctor - Jon Pertwee and those cyborgs scared the living bee-jesus out of me but I could never look away even when I was hiding behind the sofa. I had a massive crush on Tom Baker when he made the character of The Doctor his own. But when the series was resurrected a few years ago with but never did see the first episodes when the series was resurrected a few years ago with Christopher Eccleston taking over the role.
It was really good - and awesome to watch back-to-back like that: clean Christmas house, smelling of pine and roast lamb, family all around, Dr Who on the telly - sort of a perfect Jamjar Christmas Afternoon.
I tucked traditional vegetables around the roast about an hour and a half before dinnertime, and they roasted to a gorgeous colour, full of flavour. While the roast was resting, I made the gravy and the meal came together in a glorious, pull-apart meal we all enjoyed immensely. There wasn't a single piece of meat left on the bone of that lamb roast by the end of the meal - we saved the bone for the dog and she spent the last of Christmas evening gnawing away to her heart's content.
PS: my tomato is growing, due to a snap in the main stem because the fruit was too heavy and I was too lax in my staking. But the fruit are still growing and the leaves are still green though I think they're working pretty hard - my tomato plant is a battler! It's about 1.5. tall, and has about a dozen green tomatoes.
Tomato Plant
Man alive.. my tomato plant is going great guns! I swear it grows a couple of inches every day. It's more like a tomato *tree*!
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Up with the larks!
I'm not a morning person. This fact is well known and documented. So for me to rise before mid-morning on a weekend takes a monumental effort on my part, and a very **** good reason from whomever has decided that I have to.
Bart, a friend of mine here in Melbourne presented me with a very good reason to rise early on Saturday morning: to go to Victoria Markets and buy locally-grown produce. I'd never been to the markets before, and accepted his offer and agreed, bravely, to meet him there at 7:15am.
I was somewhat surprised at how many people are up-and-about at that time on a Saturday. By the time I got there, there were already many people bustling around the stalls. For all my effort to rise early one morning, these hard working stall-keepers were up before God every weekend to transport their fare to the markets, set up their stalls and be ready for when I dragged my poorly caffeinated butt there at 7am.
Stall-keepers called out to potential-customers to entice them to buy their produce, claiming the freshest and the best of all manner of things from asparagus to zucchini.
The variety of produce was stunning too. I've never seen so many different types of mushrooms, for instance, and they all looked so fresh and beautiful.
Fresh fruit and vegetables weren't the only things on offer though. If I needed to buy live ducks, chickens or quail, they were caged at some stalls and could be purchased for less than $4 each. Lots of fresh, free-range eggs too.
Indoors at the Victoria Markets, is the Deli, Meats and Seafood sections. Beautifully presented meats and sausage, home-made pastas and sauces, cheeses and wines - the Vic Market is truly a one stop shopping experience which is both more enjoyable, and cost-efficient than going to the Supermarket.
The sun was getting up and the day was getting warm, but it was amazing feeling to have done all my shopping, and been out in the world for what felt like half a day by the time it was 9am.
I can't say I'll be rising at 5:30am every Saturday morning but I can see me doing it "sometimes". As it was I needed a bit of a nap later in the day to take the edge off my grumpiness-due-to-tiredness.
I did a bit of research on the Internet to find there is another Farmers' Market at the Abbortsford Convent on the 4th Saturday of every month - it starts at 8am which is a little more reasonable - and is in my "neck" of the woods.
If you are in Melbourne, take a look at Melbourne Community Farmers' Market's website - www.mfm.com.au - to see if there's a market near you.
