~ Curious Charlie ~

One Sustainable Great Local Lunch @ Sunday, February 26, 2017

Sunday 12th February

The Sustainable Living Festival's Great Local Lunch

There is no doubt in my mind that my lifestyle is not so sustainable. Plastic drink bottles are a frequent appearance in my bag, picked up in an uber or obtained at an event, or even Coles on days when I forgot my bottle. My food, everything is individually wrapped down to the slices of bread, deli meats and condiments. Lite and easy, sure ain't light on their environmental footprint.

I do love local food though, the theory of going to farmers/markets and reducing food miles. But is that sustainable? Haha, no, at this stage of life we can't afford to eat local. Not unless we were in food swap groups, places where say I trade you my lemons and herbs for your backyard honey or eggs.

Why eat local? Other than you'd be supporting the very local economy, growers and farmers there's less food miles, it's fresher and less modified through preservatives and such. Also you know it's not from china. We never eat things made in china, there are no regulations and they are unethical (that's also the secret to the get rich fast scheme). In the past few years they've been trojan horse-ing through our neighbour New Zealand, so be wary of "Packed in NZ from local and imported ingredients" though everything is like that these days. It could be that 99% of the ingredients are from china and the 1% garlic powder is local. The really need to work on regulations when it comes to packaged foods. *sigh*

As a part of the Sustainable Living Festival, the Big Weekend is (the) event to come down to Birrarung Marr (food festival territory) for three days of market stalls, workshops, talks, discussion and performances. It's the peak and conclusion of the festival.

"The Great Local Lunch celebrates local food and is Melbourne's biggest crowd farmed feast. A celebration of community, food, farming and gardening in the heart of Melbourne." Sitting at the table will be 200+ backyard growers, local farmers who have contributed to the lunch, and food lovers (that's us)! I don't believe I'm a foodie though, such a strange word... With donated ingredients the chefs at Kinfolk Cafe and The Social Food Project have created a four course lunch consisting of locally produced food.

Wind bruised strawberry and native mint kombucha

Running a bit late we missed entrees though arrived just in time for the mains. Don't you just love it when someone takes your glass with your lipstick print on it? I failed to be assertive there. Also nothing irritates me more than when you earned your ticket, while someone else just happens to be at the right place at the right time and gets in for free!

Golden nugget pumpkin and red lentil dip served in edible pumpkin cups

Beetroot relish, mixed olives. Sauerkraut with white cabbage, carrots and Preston garlic

Free-love backyard quail egg frittata with lucky dip veggies and herbs

Potato & Red Cabbage Salad with a Creamy Dressing + Dill

Salted zucchini and silverbeet, radish, warrigal spinach, labne and dill

Stone fruit, heirloom tomato, cucumber, mint, lemon and balsamic vinaigrette

Green lentils, heirloom carrots roasted with honey,

pickled beetroot, herbs, red wine vinaigrette

Seasonal stone fruit sponge with basil glaze and sour nectarine mint drizzle (vegan)

This is an insect hotel that we got to take home. Most fascinating, I've never seen something like this before, though I don't like gardening. Pictured to the left is a vulture, who the hell takes a drink that has someone else's lipstick mark on it? And it wasn't even like I placed it anywhere near her! Some/most days people really suck and push me a step closer to become reclusive.

Another insect hotel.

My +1 sabotaged me (not jas this time) to ensure I'd go alone. So applications are open if you'd like to join me on my adventures, must be a pork lover and drinker. Things to take home: Beetroot relish - not as salty or with gelatinous as the ones at the shops. Worm juice (not food for you). Zucchini and basil (water) soup.

While everything was delicious the highlights were those stone fruit with the vinaigrette, the purple potato and frittata! Seasonal tomatoes sensational!

It was a great event, a delicious local lunch that we'd love to be apart of again next year! On day even as a contributor, somehow *I killed a cactus*.

I love this idea: "By engaging in making our own kitchen staples, like cheese from scratch [or with a bit of help], we enhance our household’s resilience, our skill base and our relationships with our suppliers and farmers. We reduce waste, lower the footprint of our cheeses drastically, lower our reliance on the supermarket, and re-enable the tradition of natural cheese making [or insert other homemade thing here] to be an everyday part of our family’s life." - Milk Wood

Growing up American means everything we ate was packaged or frozen. There is fresh food, but anywhere I found it's more expensive then all the processed food, also it goes off pretty quickly. I didn't grow up cooking and loving it like jas, to me it's as psychologically awful as putting out the bins (where it's quite rare when I don't throw up - yes I throw up almost on a fortnightly basis). I hate cooking. But I bake. In the extremely unlikely case that le beau and I have kids, I'd like to teach them (or get him to) how to cook and love it, something I did/do not.