Tazziberry pancakes

It's a cold, Autumn day in Tasmania; it has been raining on-and-off all day, with very strong and gusty winds. In fact, there's a "Sheep Graziers Warning" today - get your little sheep inside or tied down, farmers!! Here's the quote from the weather page: "These conditions may cause a risk to recently shorn sheep and newborn lambs until later in the day". Brrr. To brighten up our morning, celebrate fall, and to welcome Reed home after several grueling days of Ultimate frisbee, I made Tazziberry pancakes for breakfast. What is a Tazziberry, you ask? Good question. And in fact, I didn't know until I looked it up myself. I purchased a carton of gorgeous, red Tazziberries (they look like a brilliantly red blueberry) at the market on Saturday, after sampling one and declaring it phenomenally delicious. After a little search around the internet, I found the webpage of the growers I bought my Tazziberries from:
http://www.tazziberry.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=1&MMN_position=20:20
Turns out they are actually a plant native to Chile (there called 'Chilean berries', go figure...) but that grow well in the Tasmanian climate (read: cold, rainy, windy; very similar to Chile...). Their description of the berries' flavor is unsatisfactory, but, for the life of me I can't figure out how to describe them! They have a very fragrant, floral taste, and to me, almost a hint of vanilla or butterscotch. Texturally they aren't overwhelming - they are less juicy than a blueberry, but the exquisite flavor more than makes up for it. And adding them to pancakes? A culinary win. So along with roaring winds and rain, Tasmanian Autumn also brings us a delicious gift: the Tazziberry.

Cadbury Creme Egg withdrawl...

A wise friend (and fellow Creme Egg fiend) recently told me "Dude, I stock up on Cadbury Creme eggs before Easter, don't you?". Ummm...no. And I have no idea why not. And I wish I had thought of it sooner. A fun fact for those of you in the US - Easter is a big deal here. A REALLY big deal. As in the major grocery stores are all CLOSED on Good Friday (as we learned last year, d'oh!) and there are aisles upon aisles of chocolate goodies in the stores for, oh, roughly the 4 months preceding Easter. I saw (and purchased, and ate) my first Cadbury Creme egg this year on January 8th, people! And, as my parents (who visited in February!) can attest to, there are some seriously crazy Easter goodies in the stores. There are several 1 kg (One whole kilo!!!) hollow chocolate eggs roughly the size of your head available, as well as endless other bunnies and eggs, both filled and non-filled varieties available. The crazy thing is, that, inspite of the fact that Woolworth's had roughly 4 full aisles filled with Easter candy, the chocolate just DISAPPEARS the day before Easter. However, the chocolates always disappear in this order:
1) Creme eggs
2) Mini-eggs
3) Ginormous head-sized eggs
4) Caramel eggs (who eats those, anyway?)
By the time I realize that Easter is upon us and I get it together to get to the store, my creme eggs are all gone.
Until this year.
Last Friday I stopped at a random Petrol station (yes, I live in Australia now) and was just about to hand over my Eftpos card to pay for my fill-up, when a glint of red and blue caught my eye....CREME EGGS!!!! We're talking two full weeks after Easter! In a little basket, on the counter!! I practically snatched my card out of the poor shopkeeper's hand and shouted "No wait!! I need some of those!!". And perhaps the saddest thing about this story?.....I only bought two. So now I am sitting on my "stockpile" of two eggs. How long will they last? Who knows? Some day I hope to heed my wise friend's advice and stock up on Creme Eggs, no matter how gluttonous I appear.

Guess I still don't have a hang of this blogging thing...

So yeah...I guess I'm finding it difficult, what with all the other mediums for technological outreach (e.g., Facebook, Flickr, and the ancient art of email...) to keep going with the blog. Plus, I may have limited myself a bit to only talking about food....But I am here, yet again, to try to get back on the blogging! Wish me luck...

I'm a lame blogger...or, why ultimate frisbee is not conducive to a food blog

So, I just stumbled upon my own blog (thanks, Facebook!) and realized that my last post was approximately 8 months ago....oi. This does not mean I have not been eating and am now severely malnourished. It does not even mean that I have not been eating things that have made me exclaim "This is the best _____ I've ever eaten!" I am just lazy. I apologize.
In my defense, I've had a fairly eventful past 8 months "Down Under". I've managed to:
- play in the Australian National Championships on the Tasmanian womens Ultimate Frisbee team in Perth
- start homebrewing
- move to a cute cottage built in the mid 1800s
- knit 3 hats (all FAILS) for my (now) husband
- oh yeah, and GET MARRIED in Idaho!

I will attempt to document some of these things in upcoming posts, and of course, share how good food continues to be a staple in my life.

And I'll try not to be such a lazy blogger.

The Best Ice Cream ever!

I've probably chosen to write about ice cream today because it's a hot summery day here in Tassie and I'm stuck in my office - looking longingly out the window wishing I was lollygagging in a hammock, eating DELICIOUS VALHALLA ICE CREAM! Yes, I have found the holy grail of ice cream makers right here in Tasmania, right here in Hobart actually - Valhalla. Their ice creams are so good, I can't even choose one flavor as "the greatest ice cream ever". They are ALL good. I suspect the reason for their greatness is that they use mounds of whole cream in their ice cream, probably taking years off my life as I speak, but I don't care. It is creamy, creamy goodness. In my short time in Tassie, I have tried many flavors, including:
-Blackberry cheesecake (divine!)
-Raspberry cream (excellent!)
-Carmel fudge (carmelly goodness)
-Jamaican coffee (oi!)
-Ferrero Rocher (seriously, why has no one else thought of this?? Brilliant!!!)
-Chocolate (the grand-daddy of chocolate ice creams - and I am very particular about chocolate ice cream)

If any of you ever make Down Under, make the trip to Tassie and try Valhalla ice cream. Your arteries may hate you for it, but your stomach will love you forever.

Best Gnocci Ever!

I almost feel like I can't take full credit for this one, since it was recommended by friends as "the best gnocci ever". Well, they were right. It was at the restaurant Smolt, in Salamanca (Hobart), and damn, was it good. Now, I generally like gnocci. But the chef at Smolt has capitolized on the age-old secret: EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH BUTTER AND BACON. Yes, the gnocci were sauteed in delicious, delicious butter, and served with pancetta, broccolini, and fresh parmesan. Unreal. Seriously, there's no reason NOT to eat gnocci like this. (I tried to take a picture with my camera phone, but no-go, sorry). I'm holding back a little, I really want to go on about the supreme greatness of bacon (and pancetta, of course) and butter, but I think you all know that. I mean, come on - bacon is the thing that breaks vegetarians. Anyway, I believe that gnocci has now found its soul mates in butter and pancetta - never to be eaten separately again.

Best Pasty Ever (+ our introduction to Vanilla Slice!)

Mmm, the pasty! I was actually introduced to the pasty before moving to a British commonwealth; they're quite popular in the Upper Penninsula (say ya to da UP, eh?) of Michigan. Anyway, Reed and I ate the best Cornish pasties at the Ross Bakery, in the sweet little town of Ross, Tasmania (the picture at the left is a church in Ross - sorry, no pasty pictures!). This bakery was a little slice of heaven, everything looked amazing. The pasties though....oh my. The crust was perfect - buttery and flaky. The whole meal was rather noteworthy, considering we followed the pasties with an Aussie dessert delicacy: the Vanilla Slice. The Vanilla Slice consists of two pieces of filo-like dough, dusted in powdered sugar, sandwiching a ginormous slice of vanilla custard (seriously, it was like four-inches thick!). An outstanding meal all around!