Last Saturday, this Saturday
I promised at the end of my last post to tell you what we did last Saturday. Now it is Saturday again and I don't remember doing anything of interest in between. Work days are pretty much work - sleep - work - sleep etc. for us. I didn't even go dancing this week as I need to build my legs muscles up again after they atrophied in the plane. Last Saturday and this Saturday are, after the customary pattern, all about food.
Last Saturday was the Sydney Good Food and Wine show. I bought the tickets in advance and I was a bit worried that I wasn't going to be feeling awake enough to go to this either. Two nights of sleep seemed to do the trick though...
We made it over about 12:30pm. The Good Food and Wine show was hosted in part of the Sydney Convention Centre in Darling Harbour. (I found out that this is also the same building as Sydney Exhibition Centre further down - the building just extends a long way). We had to resist the temptation of the used-Auto exhibition or something similar on the way but managed it.
There were lots of people there. It was hard to get around and some stalls (such as the Lindt stall giving away free samples) were permanently over subscribed.
It was really interesting as a comparison to the Sydney Growers market (this Saturday) as a lot of the food had quite clearly not been "grown" - a lot of the stalls were run by instant noodle and stir fry sauce companies doing continual demonstrations. My favourite food I saw (I'm not sure I would eat it) were some almost luminous red and green nachos, which were brilliant because they were so far removed from nature.
We went to get a glass for Sean and a "show bag" for me. The show bag was slightly disappointing, containing mainly advertising material, a bar a Lindt (OK that bit was good) and a Mazda sponsored cheese slice. I was confused by this and thought it might be some kind of window scraper.
I tried a few free samples: some gorgeous yoghurt, some fake milkshake (a powder that you add water and ice too - why oh why??), some soup, some acai juice (from the Amazon rainforests, tastes a bit like blueberry) and some Ocean Spray Cranberry juice. I have to admit that I did know what the cranberry juice tasted like (Ocean Spray appear to have a global monopoly on it) but I was thirsty by this point. Sean tried various wines.
The best thing about the show was the existence of real life marketing shows. Every 5 stalls or so was set up like a program on the shopping channel where an enthusiastic chap tried to sell you some (often only vaguely) food or drink related product. One chap was even American (he was also clearly the best salesman). We resisted his attempted sale of chamois cloths but we succumbed to the usual slicing machine. We have since used it - it's great for onions and slightly less good for apples if you don't have a corer but I've bought one now. Stir fries will now be organised around vegetables that can be chopped using the gadget. Goodbye mange tout.
Slicing Machine
This Saturday was again the Sydney Growers market outside the casino. We know pretty much what is there now so we can just go and buy what we want and come home. We got some cheese from a stall we visited last time and also from a not-yet-visited stall for Sean. He is now getting into quite hard (mainly French) cheeses as long as they are not too runny.
I resisted the fudge, although it is a little easier at the moment because there is a fudge stall in the shopping centre in darling harbour and I am determined to try that fudge first before indulging in the Bowral fudge from the farmers market again.
There was a new stall selling samosas (and I think also some ready made curry sauces) so I bought one of those for breakfast. Sean had a raisin pinwheel from the French patisserie tent.
We had decided to get another duck and eat it on Monday and accordingly went to the duck stall and asked for a frozen duck. They offered to get us one from the van but couldn't understand why we explicitly wanted one. They sold us a fresh duck instead that they assured us would keep until Monday. After we had bought the duck we realised that we had become confused by the fact that the duck was frozen before and it made much more sense to eat it tonight. It is in the oven now.
We have been watching a lot of the world cup, which is adding to our need to sleep. The games are usually at 1am or 5am - 5am means getting up early, 1am means getting up in the middle of the night (we can't stay up that late any more). Tonight is England-Portugal at 1am. We might stay up as it's a Saturday (and we've already had a little sleep this afternoon) or we may have a nap beforehand.
I promised at the end of my last post to tell you what we did last Saturday. Now it is Saturday again and I don't remember doing anything of interest in between. Work days are pretty much work - sleep - work - sleep etc. for us. I didn't even go dancing this week as I need to build my legs muscles up again after they atrophied in the plane. Last Saturday and this Saturday are, after the customary pattern, all about food.
Last Saturday was the Sydney Good Food and Wine show. I bought the tickets in advance and I was a bit worried that I wasn't going to be feeling awake enough to go to this either. Two nights of sleep seemed to do the trick though...
We made it over about 12:30pm. The Good Food and Wine show was hosted in part of the Sydney Convention Centre in Darling Harbour. (I found out that this is also the same building as Sydney Exhibition Centre further down - the building just extends a long way). We had to resist the temptation of the used-Auto exhibition or something similar on the way but managed it.
There were lots of people there. It was hard to get around and some stalls (such as the Lindt stall giving away free samples) were permanently over subscribed.
It was really interesting as a comparison to the Sydney Growers market (this Saturday) as a lot of the food had quite clearly not been "grown" - a lot of the stalls were run by instant noodle and stir fry sauce companies doing continual demonstrations. My favourite food I saw (I'm not sure I would eat it) were some almost luminous red and green nachos, which were brilliant because they were so far removed from nature.
We went to get a glass for Sean and a "show bag" for me. The show bag was slightly disappointing, containing mainly advertising material, a bar a Lindt (OK that bit was good) and a Mazda sponsored cheese slice. I was confused by this and thought it might be some kind of window scraper.
I tried a few free samples: some gorgeous yoghurt, some fake milkshake (a powder that you add water and ice too - why oh why??), some soup, some acai juice (from the Amazon rainforests, tastes a bit like blueberry) and some Ocean Spray Cranberry juice. I have to admit that I did know what the cranberry juice tasted like (Ocean Spray appear to have a global monopoly on it) but I was thirsty by this point. Sean tried various wines.
The best thing about the show was the existence of real life marketing shows. Every 5 stalls or so was set up like a program on the shopping channel where an enthusiastic chap tried to sell you some (often only vaguely) food or drink related product. One chap was even American (he was also clearly the best salesman). We resisted his attempted sale of chamois cloths but we succumbed to the usual slicing machine. We have since used it - it's great for onions and slightly less good for apples if you don't have a corer but I've bought one now. Stir fries will now be organised around vegetables that can be chopped using the gadget. Goodbye mange tout.
Slicing Machine
This Saturday was again the Sydney Growers market outside the casino. We know pretty much what is there now so we can just go and buy what we want and come home. We got some cheese from a stall we visited last time and also from a not-yet-visited stall for Sean. He is now getting into quite hard (mainly French) cheeses as long as they are not too runny.
I resisted the fudge, although it is a little easier at the moment because there is a fudge stall in the shopping centre in darling harbour and I am determined to try that fudge first before indulging in the Bowral fudge from the farmers market again.
There was a new stall selling samosas (and I think also some ready made curry sauces) so I bought one of those for breakfast. Sean had a raisin pinwheel from the French patisserie tent.
We had decided to get another duck and eat it on Monday and accordingly went to the duck stall and asked for a frozen duck. They offered to get us one from the van but couldn't understand why we explicitly wanted one. They sold us a fresh duck instead that they assured us would keep until Monday. After we had bought the duck we realised that we had become confused by the fact that the duck was frozen before and it made much more sense to eat it tonight. It is in the oven now.
We have been watching a lot of the world cup, which is adding to our need to sleep. The games are usually at 1am or 5am - 5am means getting up early, 1am means getting up in the middle of the night (we can't stay up that late any more). Tonight is England-Portugal at 1am. We might stay up as it's a Saturday (and we've already had a little sleep this afternoon) or we may have a nap beforehand.
posted by Zoe at 3:50 PM
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