The chips are down!

Fair Go was funny last night. They had a story about Crocs, those holey as Swiss-cheese plastic clogs, melting in the sun and shrinking. (Apparently they're liable to do that in "extreme conditions".) And they also had a story about McCains frozen French fries. Someone bought a bag of them from a supermarket in Rotorua and it turned out to have a manky old cleaning cloth inside. Now Fair Go made a big fuss about the fact that noone from the company told Food Safety NZ and they didn't front up to the show either, but what caught my attention was the fact that these French fries are shipped to New Zealand from a factory in Ballarat, Australia.

Huh?

We don't grow our own frozen chips? We import them from Australia? Madness.

As a Coronation Street fan...

It has just struck me that no one in Weatherfield appears to have a vege patch. I remember that Jack Duckworth had an allotment a few years back, but no one else seems to grow their own - not even Norris. (Deidre should probably start growing her own tobacco at the rate she's chugging through the ciggies at the moment.)
Which got me thinking: nobody on Shortland Street has a garden either. Perhaps Chris could help Harry get over his mum's death by planting a vege patch. They could spell out 'Toni' in mesclun salad seedlings...
They could ask Nicole Kidman for a few pointers, or a "frugalista" like Elizabeth Hurley...

Confessions of a junk foodie...

Ask me how much I've spent on groceries at the supermarket over the last fortnight. Go on. Ask me. $300? $200? $100? $50? $10?
Nope. Not a brass razoo.
Not a gold, silver, zinc, aluminium or tin razoo either.
It's true.
Well, it's sort of true.
I didn't go to the supermarket last week because I was at Fieldays, where I fell off the self-sufficiency wagon in spectacular fashion. Show me a deep-fried hot dog and I'll show you a gardening editor who can scoff it down in less than 10 seconds, stopping only for a glug or two of Coca Cola.
Oh the hypocrisy! There I was, happily autographing copies of our latest special collector's edition, Homegrown 2: Live off your land for less (available now at supermarkets, bookstores or from our online store) on our stand, offering free advice and cajoling novice gardeners to start sowing seeds and growing food... and all the while what I was really wondering was whether to have a hamburger next, or another hotdog.
At Fieldays I ate every type of junk food you can think of - hot chips, chicken kebabs, Chinese noodles, two Danish delight waffle ice creams, a tub of fudge... and I stopped at KFC in Huntly on the way down, and again on the way back. Shame on me. (And gosh, isn't that processed potato and gravy sinfully delicious??)
I can't claim any moral high ground since, either. It was my birthday at the weekend and I scoffed a bowl of nachos at the Kings Plant Barn cafe for brunch, but as I didn't actually pay for them (it was my mother's shout), I figure I can't be held responsible.
Ditto the popcorn and choc top I ate last night during the movie preview of Grow Your Own, a charming, heart-warming British film about allotments (go see it... it opens on Thursday); and the meal our team ate at Wagamama afterwards.
As I was at Fieldays on Saturday, I also missed my weekly trip to the city farmers' market, so I went with my cousin to the Avondale markets on Sunday instead. I felt a vege-buying binge coming on. (If you can buy carbon credits, surely you should be able to buy fresh food credits to cancel out all the processed muck you've eaten?)
If you live in Auckland and you've never been to the Avondale markets, make plans to go next Sunday. It's quite the culinary adventure. Half the stuff that's sold there I've never seen before, let alone grown. The stallholders offer all sorts of Asian greens, herbs and spices, massive melons, giant radishes, subtropical fruit... and all the standard stuff, but at dirt-cheap prices. I spent $9.30 and bought one cauliflower ($1.80), a HUGE cabbage ($1.40), an 80c knob of fresh ginger, three red capsicums for $2 (I still have yellow ones in my garden but I wanted to make a spicy Thai soup with my lemon grass, chillies and kaffir lime leaves), a $2 bag of organic limes (I've eaten all mine) and a can of coconut milk for $1.30.
Ok. I've confessed my sins. Back to self-sufficiency again in earnest now.
PS. Does anyone know if you can make leek and potato soup using spring onions instead? I've got about 300 spring onions to get through, but my leeks are still skinnier than a pencil.