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A knobbly, scaly, irregular shaped dark brown tuber with roots coming off it.

Yams

My part of the world is not kind to potatoes, or wheat, or sugar cane. More and more I am realising that our northern European food culture, imported along with the first fleet, makes very hard work of it. The food crops that dominate the Farmer’s Market are mostly south-east Asian, African, Central American, or Pacific Islander. Besides all the wonderful range of greens and fruits, there’s the starchy calorie…

A small tree in a square, black plastic pot. It has glossy, medium green leaves and a small bamboo stake.

Garden Pharmacy – Cinnamon

I bought a cinnamon tree. It’s a small tree – two to five metres – and attractive with its glossy green leaves and red new growth. And it needs to be pruned hard. So I should be able to find a spot for it somewhere even in this little suburban garden. But some research about cinnamon being “a potent botanical for complicated UTI” struck me.

A blue pottery plate with four crispbreads on it. You can barely see the crispbreads because they are covered in lettuce, tomatoes, artichoke hears and black bits of pickled eggplants.

Sourdough Crispbread

There’s something about sourdough – the simplest of ingredients, the living culture, the soft resilience of the dough as you handle it, the mindfulness in being a day ahead of need – no matter how busy I get it’s worth it. But therein lies the danger. I really do need to cut down the amount of bread I eat! A jar of sourdough crispbread on the shelf stretches the time…

Gremolata

This is so simple, yet it is one of my most used recipes this time of year, when both parsley and lemons are in glut and dinner is often a long slow-cooked soup or stew that could do with some brightening up.

a basket full of large, brown skinned tubers. In the background is a garden.

All About Yacon

I’ve been bandicooting the yacon for months now, but this morning I harvested the rest – over 10 kg from about 2.5m2 of garden bed. The tubers are sweet and crisp and very good for you. My grandkids love eating fresh yacon just as is, peeled and eaten like an apple straight from the hand. We adults eat it mostly finely sliced in salads, or as batons in stir fries,…

Measuring What Matters

There was an article in “The Conversation” this morning about the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, planning to release a statement called “The Measuring What Matters” statement. It’s a plan to track wellbeing using about 50 indicators of how Australians are doing. Chalmers said the traditional economic metrics – GDP, income, employment – didn’t tell the whole story. Other things also mattered. No shit, Sherlock.