Heirloom Tomato Salad

Three years ago today Sam and I got married. Three weeks before that, Sam’s Aunt Jane and Uncle David gave us this amazing Dinosaur Designs platter. We were incredibly touched, both by the generosity of the gift and by the beauty of the piece. I’d like to think that we will cherish every wedding present and remember who gave it to us (so far, so good), but this one is particularly notable.

I have always thought that this platter deserves a colourful salad, although I’ve not yet been game enough to serve beetroot on it. I pictured a bright red, yellow and green salad of heirloom tomatoes however I haven’t been able to grow any (more on that later) and such delicacies are hard to find in Tamworth.

 Fortunately, all of my tomato salad dreams came true last week, when a family friend and my in-laws offloaded a kilo or so of Digger’s Heirloom collection.  

 Wash all tomatoes before cutting in to rough chunks and placing in a large mixing bowl. Preserve variety by considering each tomato’s shape and by slicing bigger tomatoes into thick horizontal slices. Drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil – I used Chapman Hill New Norcia – and sprinkle with sea salt flakes. Turn gently in the bowl to ensure an even coverage, adding more oil and salt as you go, then leave for an hour.

Arrange tomatoes on your own beautiful platter, reserving the juice in the bottom of the mixing bowl. Taste the juice, adjust for seasoning and add a splash of red wine vinegar if you would like a sharper flavour, before pouring the juice over the tomatoes. Scatter with basil, pepper and buffalo mozzarella (if you have any – I used feta) and serve at room temperature.

Green green thumbs

With more than six weeks of Autumn behind us already there has been much excitement about autumn produce, so it seems appropriate that I write about our vegetable garden.

Starting a vege patch was a condition of our move up north, as far as I was concerned. I'm not sure where the motivation came from, but I was determined to grow food. I envisaged espaliered apple trees, fully established citrus, laden fig trees and maybe even pomegranates. Instead, I have a bare house block and next-to-no gardening knowledge. And so begins my gardening journey. I have been assured it is one that will provide boundless satisfaction and a little heartache, and it will never end.

You have to crawl before you can walk, so we have been planting little and planning lots. But the vege patch is underway. I have to admit it has been more successful that I thought, with very little human input, thanks to rainy yet warm weather.
Summer produced an abundance of beans, basil and cucumber, which have all just about come to an end. I know I have to dig up the gone-to-seed basil, but I'm feeling more than a little emotionally attached. For so many years I saw a few straggly sprigs growing in pots in my South Melbourne courtyard. This summer I had basil up to my waist.

In their place I hope to grow snow peas, chicory, watercress and leeks. Parsley, thyme and sage are still going well, although the chives were suffocated by the prolific basil.

We built a no dig garden, a term which has recently seemed far more technical than it needs to be. Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion recommends a list of ingredients longer than that of the recipes. Pea straw, lucerne, newspapers, seaweed fertiliser, manure, Hydrocell, organic compost and so on.

This six-layer method recommends quantities suitable for a 1 metre x 1 metre garden. As we have a space nearly three-by-three, the scientist in me decided we needed 3 times the quantities and suddenly our vege patch was looking very expensive indeed.

So, we took some shortcuts - especially after the assistant at the local landscape supply store politely pointed out that we would not fit three cubic metres of soil in a box trailer. (For future reference, a box trailer holds 0.5 cubic metres).

The final result? One layer of cardboard, a layer of lucerne, a layer of three-in-one (compost, manure and soil), another layer of lucerne, and another layer of three-in-one. And it seems to work. We didn't follow a "recipe" or get too technical (or rather, we did, then saw the light), we just got on and did it.


So here's to some happy Autumn growing. Let's hope it's as fruitful as the Summer crop.

From Melbourne to Tamworth

For five fun years this New South Welshman (Welshwoman?) has lived and breathed Melbourne. A 12-24 month stint south of the border morphed into a love affair with Victoria's capital. Husband S-bo and I loved the restaurants, the cafes, the markets, the bay. We loved the Swans at the G and the Boxing Day Test and of course we loved the tennis and its epic five-setters. But, this good thing has come to an end: S-bo and I have packed up our lives and moved to Tamworth, NSW.

Of all the gourmet Meccas in regional Australia, Tamworth is probably not one of them, but we have followed lifestyle and family. A quote I thought most apt when we were debating the move was by Newcastle poet, Keri Glastonbury, when discussing her move from Sydney to Newcastle at the 2011 Emerging Writers Festival. “Sometimes you have to give something up to get something better.” Have I got something better? Time will tell (and I have very few doubts) but I have certainly given a lot up by leaving Melbourne’s food scene.

We've been here for three months, we have a house, a yard, a dog and a vege patch, but there's a lot more to discover. I hope you'll join me as I taste local produce, test out cafes and restaurants and foster my vege garden. Not to mention learning how to master an electric cooktop ...