Hunting, Gathering and Foraging in Port Adelaide

 

Whenever we arrive in a new port, there's a few days of wandering around aimlessly trying to figure out what's available and what's where. David was here long before me, but he really spent his time working on the boat, not exploring. He went to the local Foodland for whatever he needed and called it good. It's time to start thinking about provisioning for our next passage, so I was interested in checking out more shops to see what they had to offer and how prices compared.

The Port Canal Shopping Centre is just across the way from the train station in Port Adelaide, so it's pretty convenient. There's a Cole's Supermarket and a K-Mart (yup, K-Mart) right there. The Centre continues for a couple of blocks or so with little shops inside mall areas till finally you reach the promised land … Farmer Joe's Fresh Food Barn.

Here I found fresh produce, eggs, fresh chicken and so much more ... for so much less. Green grapes are in season here ... on sale at Coles for $3.20/kg; Farmer Joe's had the same grapes and same quality for $2.49/kg. The best deal was the boneless chicken breasts, my favorite for canning/preserving. I saw the sign $8.99/kg and I was all over it. (another blog, another day)

Not having a car to tote everything entails a challenge of its own. You have to be able to carry everything you buy and it's amazing how fast your backpack and grocery sacks fill up when you're shopping and you still haven't purchased everything on your list. If you want 5kg (10lbs) of potatoes, you need to forgo purchasing something else on this trip or you're overwhelmed. You can only carry so much. Remember, once we get off the train, we still have a 15 minute walk back to the boat … toting everything we bought. Our old tote cart had given up the ghost to rust and abuse long ago, so I broke down and found another trolley (tote cart) in the local discount shop … that would be either The Reject Shop (think Big Lots) or Cheap as Chips. I like Cheap as Chips simply because of their name. These type stores carry everything from breadboards and bottle brushes, to totes and cellophane tape (all of which we needed) and lots of stuff we don't need.

I'm glad I bought the drag-along trolley. It's saved lots of sore shoulders and backs toting heavy groceries back to the boat, not to mention I can buy more at one time. The fact that I look like an old granny walking down the street … well, that's another topic of discussion. The point is not everything is available at the same store. I get what I need at Cheap as Chips, I load up at Farmer Joe's, keep my receipts handy, and head into Coles and/or Foodland for whatever else is on the list. I've gotten to know where yogurt powder is cheaper or where dishwashing soap is on sale. Usually, there's not much room left in the tote and there's always an issue if I'm alone trying to pull the tote and push the cart at the same time. It's doable, but rather comical to watch.

Folks ask how we spend our time on a boat and isn't it easy to get bored? How can you get bored when it takes an entire day to hunt, gather and forage for food? And that's just a week's worth, if we're lucky. We haven't even made it into Adelaide's Central Market yet, but that would be an even longer distance to cart everything. And this is just for food … it's a whole other adventure looking for boat parts and brew supplies.

Next comes an inventory of everything aboard to see what we need to stock up on for the upcoming passage. We may need more than a trolley … we may need to rent/borrow a car.

Donuts

 

There's something about doughnuts (or is it donuts?) … maybe the fact that they're so unhealthy … that makes them especially appealing. In New England, especially the Boston area, the donut leader is definitely Dunkin Donuts … “America runs on Dunkin.” There's a Dunkin Donut shop on every corner, it seems. In fact, there are more than 500 Dunkin Donut shops in Massachusetts alone. Wiki indicates there are about 15,000 shops worldwide, in 37 countries.

Within 5 miles of my sister's house, there are at least five Dunkin Donuts shop and two Honey Dews. There are a couple of non-chain donut shops, too. This definitely paints a picture of local preferences, doesn't it? Nationally, Dunkies competes with Starbucks on the coffee side and Krispy Kreme on the doughnut side, but locally, Dunkies wins. After all, it started in Canton, our neighboring town. You gotta support the local family. When President Obama was campaigning in New England, he even indulged in some Dunkies. It's the thing to do here.

There are cake donuts and raised donuts. Then there's glazed, filled and frosted with hundreds of variations to fit the geography, season and local taste. Some have colorful sprinkles on top. When we eat donuts, which is very seldom, my favorite is jelly-filled or creme-filled raised. David likes chocolate frosted chocolate cake donuts.

There are those specialty donut shops that catch your attention like Ronald's in Las Vegas which we found only because our daughter-in-law claims them to be some of the best vegan donuts in the country. We weren't impressed, but then we're neither vegans nor donut fans.

Then there's VooDoo Donuts in Oregon (“the magic's in the hole”) which is supposedly opening a new store in Denver, but it hadn't opened yet when we were there. They offer gimmick donuts with local themes. How could you resist that?

We were stunned when we were in Ecuador a few years ago and there in Salinas, a beach resort town, was a Dunkin Donuts. We just had to have one. It was awful … definitely not what we're used to in the US … way too sweet and very greasy. Supposedly there were Dunkies in Australia for awhile, but they were all closed down. We've heard that they'll be opening again in the near future. With any luck, we'll miss the grand re-openings. Who needs donuts when you have all those pies?

Check out a little donut trivia here.

Making Candy Canes

 

When we were in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, we stopped into the Hammond Candy Factory for a free tour. We got what we paid for. Sometimes “free” doesn't amount to much. The tour was rather boring … the guide was bored with her job and the extent of the “tour” included viewing a rather dated video and then peering through a hazy window (hence hazy photos) to watch candy factory people chat and be bored while making candy.

We did, however, see candy canes being made. Hammonds still does things the “old fashioned” way … that is, mostly with very old machines and several facets of the process by hand. They pride themselves in this aspect of their business, though we're thinking they could lower their prices and produce more candy a bit faster if they introduced a bit more efficiency to their factory … and they probably wouldn't sacrifice anything in the quality department. Just an observation on our part though.

Though no mention was made of it on the tour, Wiki informed me that “the first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent sugar-sticks into canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were given out to children (to keep them quiet?) during the long-winded nativity services.” Evidently, the all-white candy candy canes became a tradition, but stayed white until the turn of the 20th century when Christmas card illustrations began showing striped canes. It was around that same time that minty flavors were added to the candy.

Back to the subject at hand … Candy cane making is quite an art. We watched as two men emptied giant copper cauldrons of thick bubbling sugar syrup onto large cooling tables. After cooling, this sticky concoction was gathered up into a large blob and put onto an antiquated machine to be “pulled”. Color was added here. Then candymakers worked two or three gigantic blobs by hand, carefully laying one color next to another, forming it into rectangles … this would forms the stripes. Flavoring was added at this point and worked into the mix.

The tri-colored rectangle was fed into a machine which turned out a long, twisted, striped tube of candy. One fellow measured and, using a large pair of scissors, cut the stick to exactly the right length. The next person in line bent the end to form the “crook” of the cane. That's the part I appreciated the most although she didn't look very excited about the task. Probably candy cane bending for eight hours a day does that to you. At the next station, they were packaged.

Hammonds offers 30 candy cane flavors. Peppermint is just the beginning. There's pumpkin pie, birthday cake and Five Spice among others. We're traditionalists … peppermint for us … thank you very much. Wish we had a smell or taste byte to share with you. Before the tour leader dumped us out in the factory store, she gave each of us a sample. A nice gesture especially since we couldn't find anything in the store that we could afford.

We'd never heard of Hammonds before though they've been in Denver since 1920. I wondered how they stayed in business if no one's ever heard of them. When I went into Barnes & Noble the other day here in Walpole, however, there they were … several Hammond's Candy displays. I guess we've been living in a box … or on a boat.

Care to try making your own? Give this recipe a try.