Melbourne – food
I went to Melbourne for a conference 2 weeks ago, and it was lovely to get out of the tropics for a while. Just think – when you open the hotel window, the air outside is COOLER than the air inside – what a concept! And if you towel yourself off in the bathroom, you actually get dry. Again – who knew?
Aside from conferring, I did a certain amount of walking around the city. It’s clean, airy, full of lovely sidewalks and interesting buildings and parks – in short, a wonderful place to walk. One of the places I went was the Queen Victoria Market, where Australians sell their produce. They grow organic stuff:
And also non-organic produce (I originally typed “inorganic produce” and then realized what nonsense that would be):
This is the Apple Corner of the market, which is essentially a couple of long sheds with a daily farmers’ market going on in them. Towards noon the prices fall precipitously, but where was I going to put a forty-pound box of oranges? Anyway, I did buy some fruit, and was surprised at how good it is to eat relatively locally – Singapore does NOT grow any veggies or fruit (well, some hydroponic greens, but that’s it), and I ate apples that tasted as if they’d been plucked off the tree that morning. What bliss.
But it’s not all outdoor sheds. There’s a huge deli hall, where you can get lots of Turkish/Greek food, pizza, cakes, poppy and sesame and nut-based pastries, and cheese, cheese, cheese, all made locally. Wow. And then if you keep walking you hit another building where they sell meat and fish. Herewith, some photos of beautifully laid out and super-fresh meat and fish. Note the buffalo and kangaroo roasts on offer:
Seafood below: scallops with their shells and oysters ditto, in little plastic trays:
And I don’t know if you can see them in this photo, but the little garfish, the yellow/translucent ones with long noses, still have bright clear eyes. I’d never seen these (when not snorkelling) except when they were threaded on a skewer and grilled in japanese restaurants:
