All posts tagged: markets

Auckland Markets this December

Published by

For those living in Auckland, here’s my pick of city side markets where local talent will showing their wares this December. I’ve listed them in date order and the first one starts tonight in St Kevin’s Arcade on K Road and the last one is on the 23rd. Thursday 6 December 2012 First Thursday, St Kevins Arcade, K Road, 6-9pm, www.firstthursdays.co.nz Friday 7 December 2012 Silo Markets, Silo Park, 5pm til late, http://www.silopark.co.nz Saturday 8 December 2012 Auckland Art & Craft Fair, Aotea Centre, 11-4pm, aucklandfair.blogspot.co.nz Silo Markets, Silo Park, 12-6pm, www.silopark.co.nz Mt Eden Village Craft Market, Mt Eden Village Centre, 1-4pm, http://www.eventfinder.co.nz Friday 14 December 2012 Christmas Markets, Aotea Square, 5-10pm, http://www.the-edge.co.nz/christmasmarkets Silo Markets, Silo Park, 5pm til late, www.silopark.co.nz Saturday 15 December 2012 Made & Found Market, St Johns Church, Ponsonby, 1-4pm, www.facebook.com/MadeAndFoundMarketDay Mt Eden Village Craft Market, Mt Eden Village Centre, 1-4pm, www.eventfinder.co.nz Silo Markets, Silo Park, 12-6pm, www.silopark.co.nz Christmas Markets, Aotea Square, 5-10pm, www.the-edge.co.nz/christmasmarkets Sunday 16 December 2012 Christmas Markets, Aotea Square, 10am-5pm, www.the-edge.co.nz/christmasmarkets Last minute rush! Sunday 23 December 2012 Beresford Square X-Mas Fair, 1 Beresford Square, 12pm-6pm, link. …

Voting dollars

Published by

Karma points. Call me a superstitious nitwit, but I believe in karma points. Karma is doing good deeds in this live for a better life in the next. But to me, karma points is doing good in this life and reaping the rewards and avoiding bad stuff happening in this life. At the very least, cosmic stuff aside, being a good person attracts other good people into your life. That is tangible. Every dollar you spend is a vote for something in the world. When you spend somewhere you don’t believe in, you’re taking a vote away from something you believe in. Shopping for locally made products is gaining momentum. Buying local made is considered a luxury these days and Christmas comes just once a year. Isn’t that Christmas a luxury? I can’t say I’m going 100% local this year, but I’m sending some of my votes that way. Shopping early and buying local makes me less stressed. Even if you don’t believe in karma, avoiding stress is easy to justify. Buy from Christchurch If …

Another local foodie mecca

Published by

At the end of the month or in November, there’s to be (yet another) supposed foodie mecca around here called Ponsonby Central. There will be cafes, specialist food stores, a street food strip, a fresh produce market and even an in-house radio station. It looks like there may also be some character office space available so if I stumble across a wad of cash, this might just be where I’ll plonk our new design company. Dreams are free. The focus on the process of making fresh food is sure to appeal to your average foodie. On site there will be coffee being roasted and bread being baked. At the butchery, carcasses will be hanging up and these will be cut behind glass doors for all to see. Sustainability and recycling are also big issues at Ponsonby Central and the old building was pulled apart and the materials re-used. All businesses have signed on to a recycling initiative as part of their contract. Stores to include Produce market Bakery Fish monger Butchery Cheese shop Street food …

40 days and 40 nights

Published by

40 days into our epic SE Asia adventure and we had eaten amazing things in 7 exotic countries. 40 nights into our epic SE Asia adventure and I missed cooking. I met up with Leanne and Kathy, the lovely Australian sisters from our tour, for a cooking class at Baan Thai Cookery School in Chiang Mai. At Baan Thai, I cooked and ate 4 dishes at one of their evening classes. Chicken pad thai (fried noodle dish), Seafood in coconut milk soup, Green curry with chicken and fish cakes. The green curry was the best green curry I have ever tasted. It was the last dish of the night so I had a pretty good idea of how much curry paste I liked by then. This was spot on. The instructors will encourage you to use plenty of chili and curry paste, but hopefully you know what you can handle and can be firm about how much you want to use in your dishes. You’re the one that has to eat it after all. My finished …

Fresh Food Markets in Luang Prabang, Laos

Published by

Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s worth a visit to the fresh food markets in Luang Prabang. There are no supermarkets here and locals buy fresh food daily from the markets. Markets in Auckland are a weekend activity and even then, only a small percentage of the population actually do their shopping at markets. I love seeing all the ingredients in their uncooked state. Ingredients look so fresh and lovely in daylight. When was the last time you bough vegetables that hadn’t seen fluorescent lights? The tourists here are just touristing, people don’t tend to cook while on holiday. We eat out a lot instead. There were plenty of familiar things at the market and also lots of unfamiliar  stuff to concern yourself with. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but where do you think the local restaurants get their fresh meat and produce from? Street Food There are plenty of snacks to be found at every corner. Fresh Meat This uncovered, tepid meat might horrify the NZ Food Safety Authority, but think about …

Eating Brunei

Published by

Arriving in Brunei at 7am after a 10 hour flight from Auckland, we were exhausted. We should have given into a few hours nap but with only a day in the tiny sultanate, we foolishly stayed up to be tourists. Nothing was open that early anyway so we hung about the hotel for a couple of hours and had a swim in the pool etc. Really should have taken that nap! Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque. Big, white, gold, in the centre of town. Truly dazzling in the summer sun. Don’t visit without your sunnies! Our first meal was at Food Zone in the shopping complex by the big white mosque in town. Chinese Cuisine can be found here at a fair price. We ordered a Steamed Chicken Set, a Roast Chicken Set (both sets include chicken, chicken rice, pickles, sauces and soup), Sweet & Sour Prawns, Siu Mai (pork dumplings), Ha Gaw (prawn dumplings) and drinks. A measly $24 ($19US) for the lot. Brunei dollar and New Zealand dollar are pretty dollar for dollar, meaning …

Friday Favourites: Ham roll

Published by

Let the world know that I have a special place in my heart for ham on the bone. Maybe it’s the excess it represents. You can’t get a small ham on the bone. It’s usually enough to feed a party. Maybe it’s the sweet glaze on that fatty exterior. Maybe it’s that savoury, flavourful meat that’s tender and can be eaten hot or cold. Gee, just writing about it makes me salivate. In any case, I always make it a point to eat ham outside of Christmas. I once met a random guy outside a bar. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. He said that he recognised me from a party at a bar years ago. He remembered that this party had ham. It was my 22nd birthday and the ham was a gift from my parents. We had an art exhibition at a bar and served up ham rolls to all that came. What a wonderful thing to be remembered for. Here lies Bunny.Eats.Design. She partied with Ham. Anyway, enough hamming …