Tuesday 15 November 2011

The Feast

I’ve been a bit quiet of late – I just checked, my last blog was August! How time flies...  I have been cooking... I promise; and stuff has been happening but I just moved to a new site, being a contractor in real life, and it’s been a bit full-on.

I attended the F&B Feast Day last Saturday, it was a lark.  Check out the pics on their facebook page here  (let’s see if I can figure out how to insert a hyperlink... ahh there you go!)  Mrs Feather was kind enough to ask me to be the ‘consumer representative’ on one of the discussion panels during the day – finally! My blogging has paid off - some recognition for lame jokes and good cooking.  Himself would say that’s the story of my life but there you go.

I shared the stage with some amazing people and felt quite special to be included.  I didn’t actually mention to Mrs Feather when she asked me that I suffer acute microphone-choke (F&B Junkie + Microphone = Jeremy Freedman, the squeaky voiced teen from The Simpsons).  I’ve been working on it you know; the wee girl and I purchased Sing Star, which we secretly use to rock-star it up when Himself is out of the house.  So I’ve been getting better, but this was my first public microphone appearance.  Luckily the wee girl was in the audience giving me lovely encouraging smiles and I appeared to pull it off without so much as a quaver... phew!

I would have to say my favourite talk of the day was on sustainable commercial fishing in Australia.  What with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall doing that Fish Fight over in the UK I was wondering if the plight of Australian fishies was the same.  BUT I found out that Australia is No. 2 in the world when it comes to sustainable fishing... (I wonder who no. 1 is? – probably some land locked country in Eastern Europe that ends with a ‘stan’ just because that would be ironic).  I asked about trawling as that is getting a very bad rap and one of the co-presenters assured me that trawling has come a long way, there are various escape mechanisms for animals and fish not meant for the net.  So buy Australian fish! It’s good for you and the environment too!  Apparently the fish of choice for us Sydneysiders is the Mirror Dory (not to be confused with Midori I’m sure – shame) so I’m going to hunter-gather some down, I’ll keep you posted.

Himself is in New York this week (lucky duck) so the wee girl and I are by ourselves... I think there’s a small piece of Dexter fillet in the trusty chest freezer I might brown, put in the oven for a bit, rest and then serve with some crumbed Dexter marrow... yum.

1 comment:

Mrs Feather said...

Dear FBJ, May I say it was a pleasure and privilege to have you involved on Saturday. You said some wonderfully sane and wise things (like recommending portion control instead of going cold turkey on meat) and you were articulate and incredibly confident. If all consumers were as informed, discerning and judicious as you, Coles would be out of business! I would never have guessed you had performance anxiety! I think you should approach Sing Star for sponsorship because you are a seriously good ad for them. In fact, I'm inspired to go out and buy it for us too (I'm the only girl in our household so I will hog it) as I could do with some of your confidence. Thank you again for being involved and for setting a good example for us all. Yours with gratitude, Mrs Feather