KEY POINTS:
There we were, sitting quietly in Sydney's Rushcutter's Bay Park surrounded by boats, mummies and ankle-biters.
"Excuse me, we're sorry to interrupt but we couldn't help overhearing your conversation about farmers' markets. Are you the woman who won the scholarship to study markets?"
"Yes I am," said Jane Adams with a big smile.
That was a while back, and now Jane is chairwoman of the Australian Farmers' Markets Association and teaches workshops throughout Australia and New Zealand.
If you want to set up a farmers' market in your area, Jane is the person to contact. You may have read her reports from Sydney in Cuisine magazine.
Oh, and she's also a wine expert so the perfect friend to have in Sydney. And yes, we are both so quietly spoken that the whole world knows when we are having a private conversation in a park.
You can't spend your life in restaurants when visiting Sydney so here are some lovely food things to do which don't involve conspicuous culinary consumption, gastronomic chauvinism or fashionable thrill-seeking.
Your best bet is the large Entertainment Quarter (EQ) produce market, which is a joy to behold. Open on Wednesdays and Sundays, it is full of beautiful flowers, coffee stands, cheese stalls, organic meat, sweet purple figs, gourmet mushrooms, smoked ocean trout and homemade cakes.
A rather incongruous little market appears in the fountain square in King's Cross on Saturday mornings but I probably wouldn't bother.
On the first Saturday of each month there is a growers' market at Pyrmont and on the third Saturday of the month the Northside Produce Market brings the country to the city in north Sydney.
As you're wandering along Crown Street in Surry Hills, pop into the very inspiring Urban Balcony, full of chic ideas for extending the balcony in your groovy magazine lifestyle pad.
A butcher with a difference has sprung up on Crown St at number 410. Hudson Meats is a flash butcher, deli, vegetable, fresh bread shop which just makes you want to buy up some ham, a baguette, some tomatoes and pesto and head for the hills - or at least your hotel terrace.
The fabulous food store-cafe Fratelli Fresh in Waterloo is set to open a new store in Potts Point. Jane says the best thing about this outfit is that it's certainly preferable to shopping in a supermarket, because you are buying from a wholesaler who supplies some of Sydney's best restaurants. Also, the in-house Cafe Sopra offers cooking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Sydney is full of Thai restaurants and a complete secret I discovered by chance is the Monday and Saturday night cooking classes at Om Thai restaurant on Jones Bay Wharf. You can hear the students laughing happily when you walk down the wharf as head chef Jimmy Yick Meng Mun shows them how to bash prawns into submission.
Whatever your food fix, be sure to make it an authentic experience. And Sydney offers plenty to whet your appetite. So pack a DIY local-food picnic basket and head for the nearest park.
FACT FILE
www.farmersmarkets.org.au
www.omthai.com.au
www.urbanbalcony.com.au
www.fratellifresh.com.au
- DETOURS, HoS
