Tuesday 19 May 2009

Cheese news, and a short break

Last Thursday I went to Kingston in search of fine chocolates for a gift, and I thought that while I was there I would buy some local olive oil. The Essential Ingredient would no doubt supply me... but I was wrong.

Lindy at All Things Chocolate was most satisfactory. I got a decent collection including the wonderful orange, pistachio and cardamom creams, though she hadn't any of my other favourite licorice creams with star anise at the time.

But The Essential Ingredient didn't work out. It was closed down! I was rather disturbed, and started wondering whether the economic climate had struck down a posh foodie place. But then I got closer and read the little sign - about a month ago they moved round the corner. They are now on Jardine St, in a rather bigger shop, and they have put in a cheese room. That makes Canberra's third, if I am not missing any. It looks lovely, and if I hadn't been madly packing for a Melbourne trip I would have browsed and bought. As it was, I wanted local produce, especially oil. And they had none. The website says they stock La Barre, from Yass, but there was none. Luckily Manuka Fine Foods did have some, so I finished my gift collection in good time.

And then it was off to lunch with B1 & B2, where we ate the remains of my spinach & cheese bake, then home to finish packing and catch a cab to the airport. And we had a very good weekend in Melbourne, which I shall save for another post.

We got back yesterday night, and had frozen "ready-meals" for dinner. No, not Lean Cuisines or that ilk. I had turkey quinoa pilaf, and the Bloke had sausage with Briami, a Greek vegetable casserole that I make quite often. I do have some more good stuff in the freezer, but I still don't know when the risotto will happen. The cooking options are looking limited. I need to go out for a review dinner sometime; we are meeting up with friends on Thursday night at the Parlour; and then the Bloke is going away for the weekend on Friday.

Tonight we grabbed dinner at the Wig & Pen - I'd gone in to do a small favour for an old workmate, which stretched into a long afternoon wrestling with a very annoying Mac OS problem. Damn thing was refusing to read the ~2GB files that I wanted to transfer by USB drive, and then refusing to burn a DVD of them once I finally managed to get them. Argh!! Many aaarghgghhs! I needed a large beer, and was in no mood to cook. The curry there has really improved; I enjoyed it a lot. I went and told the two cooks in the kitchen, and they seemed surprised but pleased.

2 comments:

Cindy said...

The cheese rooms I can think of are:
* Silo Bakery
* Manuka Fine Foods
* The Essential Ingredient and
* Providore, although it looks more like a large cheese fridge than a room to me (maybe I just never looked properly).

Cath said...

That's all the ones I know, too. I counted Providore as just a fridge. The cheese there is pre-packed in sealed packs. A cheese room is a humidity & temperature controlled space where the cheese sits in the open: it's supposed to be better for the cheese. Though the main point for me is the nice chap slicing you off thin slivers of everything to try until you decide what you want :)