..went to her cupboard and couldn’t find any bloody food that she used to enjoy Down Under! 
I’ve been a wee bit disappointed in Blighty, when it comes to food. Oh sure there’s lots of cheap fatty food available. All the pies, chips, grease and studge your clogged arteries could want. But where’s the good food? Why do supermarkets have aisle after aisle of pastry and pizzas and yet the country bemoans its weighty obesity problem.
Can nobody else see the connection?
Dear readers, I confess, I am a foodie. Food snob, tastebud tart..whatever.
In NZ and Australia I got used to eating all the fabulous fresh food and if I couldn’t buy cheap fish I’d throw some $2 per kilo green lipped mussels into my trolley and make up a fabulous mussel pasta dish. Cheap and delish. I was also really into cooking, and a little catering and happily attended cookschools of the great and the good – Annabel Langbein, Annabel White, and others. For $50 I could go along see a great cook demonstrate their recipe, eat the results and enjoy a glass of wine.. what’s not to like!?
I haven’t been able to find a cook school I can afford, and seriously I don’t need to know how to bone a pheasant, I’m just not that posh! Are there any cook schools that don’t cost a small mortgage to attend? Should I start one – along the lines of ‘you teach best what you need to learn’..
The irony is that I can accept that it’s difficult to find Jaffas, Tim Tams, Cherry Ripes, Pineapple Lumps and other Antipodean delicacies. That’s a given. Though there are some great food stores like kiwifruits New Zealand shop, they also do Aussie and Canadian food and SANZA who will happily supply a taste of home when you need it.
No, the real irony is that it’s the great European food I’m missing. Down Under, I loved the European grocery stores like Sabato, and Nosh (near me in Glen Innes..is it still there?) and would happily purchase up European goodies like big fat juicy olives and proscuitto and anchovies.
I’ve been a little bit disappointed. I know I live in the wop wops and not in London where all the goodies are, but English foodies please tell me…where oh where do you buy your gastronomic miracles? I think I ate fresh fish well over 20 months ago. Where can I get excellent fish, oysters, scallops, mussels? Why can’t we import them from NZ? With airfreight as it is, surely we could.
Does anybody import Bluff Oysters?
Where can I go to fill my cupboards? Don’t tell me France, I’ll get there eventually – quite possibly on a bicycle. What are the names of the best providores in England! I want names, addresses, website urls, and phone numbers!
I went to the local market on Sunday to pick up some meat and vege and I was really pleased with the freshness and quality of the produce. Yes they were all misshapen, but that’s how they are on the plant! I do not need my bananas to be ramrod straight!
Seriously what do some people do with their food that they need absolutely straight bananas? What’s next melons in a perfect D cup? Are people really naughty with their food?
The market was ok and local and cheap, but there was a limited supply of veges.
So English foodies – Utterlyscrummy, EnglishMum, eggscreamhoney – where do you buy your food?
I’m dying here. Need. Yummy. Food. Now.
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seesternrea
