Essential supplies alert

Quick heads up that the tastiest condiment in the city can be found at La Cigale French Market, on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays when they haven't run out. I first heard of harissa several years ago in Cuisine magazine, although my attempts to replicate their recipe by pounding Gregg's dried chillies into a mortar full of Delmaine Pure Olive Oil resulted in an inedible casting of red spicy grease.

A Festivus for the rest of us

Food and wine festivals. They sound great, but are they? Before purchasing your ticket, it's worth doing a quick calculation to work out exactly what it is that you're getting for your money. The Auckland Seafood Festival cost me $17 or something last year, and what did I get in return? The privilege of queuing to pay for food slightly worse in quality than if I'd got it at the local fish and chip shop. Who is that festival for anyway? Is there anyone in New Zealand who hasn't tried prawns before?

Russell the Mussel Man

Farmers' markets were created with two purposes in mind: firstly, to give local producers a forum for trading their wares without incurring the crippling overhead costs of setting up a retail business; secondly, to give middle class couples something to do together on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

World Famous in Avon-da-lay

Avondale Market is the most interesting food market in Auckland, and we'll have plenty of opportunities to find out why on this blog in the future. We went there today, and stuffed our face on good Asian food, and I got recognised by the owner of a stall which sold chicken larb and mudfish paste and various other Thai/Laotian specialties.

"Ah!," he exclaimed in broken English, "I've been waiting for you!"