Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
After enjoying a visit to the Nelson branch of Mediterranean Foods, I had intended to visit their shop in Christchurch, which also includes a café, for quite a while now but, somehow, it just never seemed to happen. But when I did finally make it I had a very pleasant afternoon, browsing through the shelves of this Aladdin’s Cave, piled high with ingredients from the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
I’ve been getting plenty of use out of the Ral Al Hanout that I made fairly recently and it is particularly good with lamb. Of course, being in New Zealand, there’s no shortage of the baa-ing beast although, as the Boyfriend told a former vegetarian friend after one such dinner, we only eat the ugly ones!
My local Oxfam Fair Trade shop here in Christchurch has started stocking Fair Trade spices, including ground ginger, cinnamon – ground and sticks, whole cloves, whole and ground black peppercorns and chilli powder, all...
Taste: Baking With Flavour is the third book from the partnership of professional baker Dean Brettschneider and contributing food editor at Cuisine magazine, Lauraine Jacobs. Their first two books – The New Zealand Baker...
When I recently received an email from Mia at Eat Feed telling me about their weekly foodie podcasts I was delighted. Having spent years involved with Cork Campus Radio, I love listening to radio, especially when I’m working from home, and RTÉ Radio 1 is the station I most miss while here in New Zealand. Although familiar with the whole idea of internet radio, being a regular listener to Seattle music station KEXP, this was my first introduction to the Eat Feed show which is presented from Chicago by Anne Bramley.
Even though yesterday was a miserable day in Lyttelton, it looked like the farmers’ market was successful. The Boyfriend, his sister and I made our way out there around 11am and the Supervalue Carpark was pretty busy by that stage, with a few of the suppliers already running out of supplies. We wandered around for a while, tasting Ground Foods delicious dips and observing the huge queue at the Tuahiwi Organic Produce stall but the cold wet day ensured that we had little inclination for dawdling. We did manage to pick up a few things, however, before we legged it to the warmth of a local café.
Even though yesterday was a miserable day in Lyttelton, it looked like the farmers’ market was successful. The Boyfriend, his sister and I made our way out there around 11am and the Supervalue Carpark was pretty busy by that stage, with a few of the suppliers already running out of supplies. We wandered around for a while, tasting Ground Foods delicious dips and observing the huge queue at the Tuahiwi Organic Produce stall but the cold wet day ensured that we had little inclination for dawdling. We did manage to pick up a few things, however, before we legged it to the warmth of a local café.
Although there is no shortage of small weekend markets in and around Christchurch, the one thing missing is a proper farmer’s market. A couple of weeks ago, however, I read an announcement in local newspaper The Christchurch Press – which does a fantastic food section every Thursday – about a farmer’s market starting up this Saturday, 3rd of September, at the Supervalue Carpark, which is just off Canterbury Street in Lyttelton. Lyttelton is a harbour community, just about half-an-hour’s drive from Christchurch, and was one of the original ports of entry for English settlers arriving in New Zealand in the 1850s.
