Saturday, April 16, 2005

Northside Produce Markets

Having missed the Growers Markets earlier in the month, I decided to make the trek over to the darkside & see what the Northside Produce Markets had to offer. According to Casey, as recently as last August, the mushroom man was still turning up, but alas it was not to be. This was, of course, my main attraction.

Upon arrival, we got told from a regular fruit & veg person that the mushroom guy hasn't been sighted for ages, and that they would usually stock more variety than the last packet of swiss browns we snapped up. Wandering around, I couldn't help noticing that a lot of the stalls were identical to the ones I usually visit at the Pyrmont Growers' ones, like Roche Brothers (the peach man!), Willowbrae Chevre, the Tobey's and Forsyth Coffee stalls, the Cootamundra Kid, and Lee from Kurrajong. So I whenever I saw something a bit different, I jumped at the opportunity to sample it.

Whitworths, well, I'm not sure what was going on here. I try and avoid all semblances of coffee on weekends, to prove to myself that I can do it dry, and that no, I'm not really addicted. But since I hadn't seen these guys before, I thought, well why not. There was a bit of miscommunication between the people working the stall. The girl taking the money seemed all too happy to assure us that the beans they were using in the machine were the Columbian blend. The girl doing the milk side wasn't sure what kind of beans they were using, and had to ask the barrista. The barrista replied that they were actually using the Costa Rican blend. Which I had just purchased 250g of. If I had been told that at the beginning, I would have purchased the Columbian blend instead! This already put us in a bad mood in which to sample the coffee. This is what it looked like:

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Car Dependance

Well. I have just gone and bought a car, after several years of dithering & thinking about it; then replying that no, I could get around on public transport and on my pushie just fine, and in fact, I live in the inner city, and I don't NEED a car, I went and bought one.

And what a shiny new toy it is. I feel guilty just filling up - and I've done it only once. Looking at those last few drops of liquid from the bowser, I made sure I got every single drop that I had paid for. Can you believe it, something like one tonne of fossilised and compressed plant material and dead dinosaurs went into making the one litre of petrol we are so cavaliar about combusting into nothing?

Already, I have used half a tank of petrol. In 3 days. Since I went and picked the car up, I've used it every single day without fail. And I'm going to use it for the next three days as well. Instead of thinking 'oh, i'll have a quiet night in', I went and drove across town to see a french film in leichhardt, and, because leichhardt is under the delusion that "kitchen open till late" means 10pm !?!?!?!?!, went to a friend's house and had take out pizza instead. Stayed until just after midnight, but the point is, if I hadn't had the car, I wouldn't have been lazy and driven over to leichhardt, I probably would have stayed at home and gone to bed. And even if I had gone, I would not have stayed so late. And what does that say? That the public transport system in this city is ROOTED, and it sucks that I can only get across town by going into the city and then out again. The public transport system resembles a spider: there is no way of getting from leg 1 to leg 5 without going through the main body. GRRR.

Anyway, back to laziness, and car dependance. Then, instead of riding across town again to meet my friends and go on a virtuous bike ride, I drove. Across town. With the bike in the back. In order to go on a "let's be healthy" bike ride.

I hang my head in shame.