A Taste of Slow: Abbotsford Convent Weekend
This morning saw us down at the Abbotsford Convent as part of the first national Slow Food, A Taste of Slow – Australia 2006, festival. First off, our usual stop at the Collingwood Children’s Market on what was forecasted to be an overcast day with showers. As you can see however, the sunny blue sky held sway. Get ready now for loads of photos!
The animals at the Collingwood Children’s Farm always has lots of young visitors:
You wouldn’t think by looking around that we were just 5 minutes drive from the city centre:
Brightly coloured pasta:
Green eggs with ham anyone? (or is that duck egg blue?):
Golden and dark sultanas, currants, almonds, pepitas:
The BEST butter made fresh at The Dairy Shop. They cut it like cheese for tastings!:
Try the ‘Dark Nut Cove’ with roasted hazelnuts, pistachio, caramelised sugar & fine dark couveture chocolate from Cocoa Rhapsody:
Get yourself a coffee here but don’t be fooled into joining the queue for the pancakes next door. The high demand often has them churning out golden brown pancakes that are uncooked in the middle:
At the Abbotsford Convent, we started with freshly shucked oysters. Mmmm:
The Convent Bakery with delicious artisanal breads baked in the woodfired masonry ovens built in 1901:
Egg and bacon roll with relish!
Cheeses & honey from Tasmania:
We picked up a jar of tangy, piquant Desert Lime Jam which we are hoping to put to good use in a jam drop cookie soon:
Stephanie Alexander signing copies of her new children’s cookbook:
The spring market garden planted by children from Stephanie’s Kitchen Garden. The produce was harvested and turned into salads for this weekend’s activities:
A gentle giant – bull mastiff:
If you were not able to make it today, come down for the final day of the Abbotsford Convent Weekend tomorrow from 10am – 5pm to enjoy some great food.
Abbotsford Convent, St Heliers Street, Abbotsford. $12 entry fee.
September 10th, 2006 at 1:51 am
Ooh that desert lime jam sounds tasty. So does the chocolate too.
And mmm… butter. You can’t beat good butter cut like cheese!
September 10th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Unbelievably jealous.
Can’t say much else, the green horns of jealousy are growing out the top of my head at an unbelievable rate!
September 10th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Hi, Cin. Niki and I went too; I suspected you would have been there. Good to see us getting out there and finding all this great stuff! We thought the colour duck egg blue came from duck eggs just being blue/green!
September 10th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
helen: I just made some jam drop cookies with the jam – mmm mmmmmm!
ellie: you should’ve gone down, it was a great day.
belinda: wonder if I spotted you guys at all – I was the one with the SLR! yes, good point about the duck egg blue! i wonder why they are not all blue.
September 11th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Hehe – I was looking for Belinda and I in the queue of the farm cafe photo!
Am very jealous I didn’t get to try the butter cut like cheese – heck, I love butter!
September 11th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Niki: are you in the queue??? I think that you may have arrived as I was heading over to Abbotsford Convent.
Have a great trip, btw. Looking forward to your OS posts.
September 12th, 2006 at 6:59 am
What a glorious event. And you’re so lucky you’re headed into spring!
September 12th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
great photos! what a fun event, i love the look of that butter!
September 15th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Your post makes me feeling hungry and footloose all at the same time!
September 16th, 2006 at 9:30 am
No.. not us in the line! I saw a few cameras thre and I was wondering who was blogging.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Thank you sooo much Cin! I’m so fortunate to be able to taste the yummy Lime Jam Drop Cookies that Cin made! :p
September 20th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Susan: I’m rejoicing at the warmer weather
JenJen: The butter is delicious and the slow food event was so much better this year
kamarkamarka: this food was worth dancing for!
Belinda: yes I saw a few SLRs too and was wondering as well…
Andrea: Glad you like the cookies! Enjoy!
September 30th, 2006 at 9:20 am
[...] Because I did such a crap job of reporting the Slow Food’s “A Taste of Slow” festival, I have found some links to people who did a better job, like Esurientes — The Comfort Zone, and Caper Berry Gravy and A Few of My Favourite Things. If you know of any other good wrap-ups, let me know. This guy’s point of view — “largely pretentious yuppy rubbish” — definitely deserves representation: I have this niggly problem with the whole scene, and I think it should come down to this. Slow food should not be expensive; it should be a movement of the celebration of simplicity and home-cooked food. I would have liked to see big crowds of Italian families competing in an Olympics of home cooking where the teams could consist only of nuclear families, and 44 gallon drums spurting fire were provided to each team. Then peppers could be roasted, goats roasted on spits, and octopuses thrashed periodically to soften them up as they were roasted over the fire, basted with bitter herbal liquors. No doubt lawyers have ensured that no such festivity is possible. [...]