For something more positive, i had the distinct pleasure of prepping and cooking some lovely sardines today.
I wanted to stress how much pleasure can be derived from eating such so-called humble ingredients, sardines do not have to come from a can, more so, like anything they are lovely when fresh. Granted they are not always available but in a way i think that makes them better, we love asparagus so much because it is only available for a short season, and in a rant similar to my last post, Alice Waters (owner and founder of Chez Pannisse, director of the French Food institute of America) was writing about tomatoes and wanted to scream at people for eating this wonderful gift of the earth out of season saying that by eating them all year round you ruin the wonderful experience of eating them when in season. It is in a similar vein to the humble sardine, you can't always have them so when you do have the chance, seize it, treat them right and they will treat you right.
it is not hard to cook your sardines either, you can do it in a fashion common in many parts of Italy and just roast or pan-fry them whole, or, if the bones and offal freak you out as they do a lot of people, just open them up and pull out the offending innards, but leave the tail on as this will hold the fish together, grill or fry them and they go wonderfully with a light salad or, of course, on toast.
one way of preparing the sardines i have not tried as yet but will be very soon is to lightly coat them in a flour mixed with, powdered mustard, sweet paprika, salt and pepper and fry them. could be served with a yoghurt or mayonnaise based sauce or again, with a salad.
I think it is important not to look down on so-called humble ingredients or you will miss a lot of pleasure. Hundreds of years ago ( before fridges and freezers ) all over Europe most people could not afford the more choice cuts of meat etc. and as such had to find ways to make what they could afford taste beautiful, or they would starve. if these same people were lucky enough to live ( or know someone who did ) on a farm and an animal had to be slaughtered then you had to use the whole animal, throwing away food would be a crime against both the animal and their empty stomachs! So, things like salami, salt fish, confit, terrine etc. were born, a way to hold that meat for the winter and thus survive the cold months. In the modern age we have much less need for these practices and while they were born out of necessity, it turns out .....it makes great food!
When it comes to food i am proud to be the peasant i am, and i encourage everyone to look for those cheap cuts, the shun fish, the paupers vegetable and find a lovely traditional recipe and i guarantee you will enjoy it more than you think.

Update!!!

Dear friends and members,

We've changed our network connections and merged our Facebook Page with our Ning Network. Some of you were not getting the updates via the Page and Ning is now asking to pay fee to run the network. So we've decided to make it easier for everyone, to create a Facebook Group. You can register as a member too and you will receive an email update for our events. We hope you join and keep the movement going!

Thank you,
Little Red Rooster & Mrs. Jones

Hi there folks, it has been a while since i made a post on our blog, but i am sad to say that this one is a rant......
i have recently discovered (while trying to source ingredients for our next event) that it is basically impossible to get fresh goose anywhere in New Zealand !!!!!!!
i was told by several very reputable suppliers of meat, poultry and game that 'we just don't have any fresh geese' and when i said that this is the point in the season that they should be being culled and therefore ....there must be some ....... i was told 'we bring them in live, put them INSIDE and fatten them up on GRAINS kill them and freeze them straight away'
this was, to say the least a very sad experience for me, no-one was prepared to allow these geese to be at their best ( by being fresh not frozen, by leaving them outside to fatten naturally against the winter cold, and to have a natural diet rather that what ever grains they could get cheapest no doubt) .
In New Zealand, we suffer from being in the southern hemisphere and as such when we want to eat goose (at Christmas)....it is not in season, goose is a traditional Christmas bird, but in the northern hemisphere when it is winter for Christmas. so i accept that i can't get a fresh goose at Christmas down here at the end of the world, but when we have so much good game and poultry going straight from slaughter to freezer and being fed rubbish i feel like screaming.
One supplier even dared to suggest that this approach was the only one ! If they were not all the way down in Rangiora i would have ran over and strangled them.....and grabbed a goose before it went into the freezer.
the fact is that in new Zealand we are behind the times in the food industry, there are valiant pioneers out there, forward thinking restaurateurs and suppliers, diners who are demanding (finally) basic food cooked perfectly etc, but when i have these experiences i want to scream at the top of my lungs WHAT ARE YOU DOING ! It seems there is still a long way to go until we can truly be a 'foodie country' (as i recently heard someone describe us as).
We have in New Zealand some of the best basic products to be found, we just often don't keep them here or don't respect them enough (like say.....throwing them in a freezer, feeding them shit, putting them in the wrong environment, not using the whole beast, central distribution in a country with the population of a small city and on and on....)
The completely honest reason i am so upset is because i wanted to serve people at our table goose.....because it is a mid-winter Christmas meal, but i can't because i will never put my name to frozen meat, never serve it to one of our guests, and never ever under any circumstances condone by purchasing, poor practices of food production that show no respect to the beast that has died for our eating pleasure.
Charlie Trotter once said ' some divine agent has given us all these lovely things to eat, the least we can do is to cook them with love and to appreciate them'
THERE IS NO LOVE IN A FREEZER.

P.S If anyone knows a farmer with geese ......i would love to know....i would change the menu at the eleventh hour for the right ingredients