Serving up a year of good eating
The Foodies' Diary - Allan Campion and Michele Curtis
Louise Johnson
Produce from the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria [©Mornington Peninsula Tourism]
I remember a time when I'd buy my fresh new diary for the year back in October and start planning out the coming year - holidays, special occassions and marking in events I couldn't miss again.
However the digital age means my online diary now stretches into infinity with no need to sit down with last year's calendar and transfer in my neatest handwriting into my new book of days. Now events and special occassions are set to repeat for infinity and I am required to logon to check my plans.
There is something about The Foodies' Diary compiled by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis that brings a bit of "slow food" back to scheduling and so this week, when I had a list as long as the coming year of things to do in preparation for Christmas, I spent an evening with old calendars, the calendar on my laptop and The Foodies Diary and slowly planned out my year.
It's looking good.
Actually, it's looking delicious and it's inspired the first of many New Year's Resolutions. Each month has a list of seasonal fruit and vegetables, an amazing recipe to match the month, a wine recommendation (to match month and recipe) and then week-to-view planner pages, with another seasonal recipe provided for each week. Suddenly I'm again inspired to eat seasonally and to chew my way through the committments and appointments of the coming year.
So, for example the first week in January we will be enjoying a free-form roast summer vegetable tart, with sparkling red and an apricot clafoutis. Handy really that our garden is spewing forth zucchini for the tart at the rate of two a day and the local greengrocer is just starting to stock the new season apricots at a reasonable price. Oh yes, that's what eating seasonal is all about.
In mid-August we will be enjoying a roast beef fillet with horseradish cream and beetroot, orange and fennel salad, some South Australian shiraz and some cinnamon roasted apples. I can hardly wait to see this year rush by.
In fact, I feel so inspired I might start at the end and do the December recipes for the final three weeks of 2008. Surely by next year I will have run out of red-berry jam, homemade muesli and will be wondering what to do with my new season tomatoes.
Dotted through the year are all the major Australian food and wine events and at the front of the diary a great reference for produce markets in each state. And now I have added my own plans I see one of the great joys of planning your life offline - I can pencil in the maybe holidays and the weekend away, which look too permanent on a digital calendar and too often are just forgotten.
If you're hunting for a last minute stocking filler this is a great idea. Or, if like me, you're trading digital for slow, spend some time planning in pen rather than repeating events to infinity.
Oh, and please feel free to use the recipes to choose the week you want to come for dinner.
The Foodies Diary 2009 by Allan Campion and Michelle Curtis is published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP A$29.95.
VisitVineyards.com subscribers and members can purchase The Foodies Diary through our online book partner Seekbooks for a 12.5 percent discount, plus postage.
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