Gardening for food at home, and New Brighton Community Gardens

Freshly picked from the garden, it doesn't seem much and yet it feeds 4, and for less than the $15 you
would give to a  Supermarket (FYI overseas reader, this $15 is a NZ supermarket campaign )

First course, vegetable soup with: yellow zucchini, green zucchini, plum tomatoes, parsley, chives, celery,
carrot, silver beet, onions. The onion are really small but I can't grow them any bigger in the bush so
I grow them in pots.

Chop, add water (rain water for me, so this too is free!) and salt, then cook. You can add a bit of
extra virgin olive oil at the end.

Second basket, more tomatoes, basil, cucumber, radish, lettuce and mizuna.

Make a salad. I just add olive oil, salt and lemon juice so the dressing is not that expensive.

Yes there is a main to go with the salad, a frittata made with free-range eggs (60c each at the farmers market, the most expensive thing in this meal, and I used 4). To flavor the frittata I used chives from the garden, and the usual salt and pepper, a bit of self-raising flour, and olive oil to fry.

Frittata before flipping

Frittata after flipping

Well, no much for dessert, only some rhubarb and a few strawberries (regular and wild),
since the season is almost finished for me.

Still, I am not discouraged: I boiled the rhubarb with 1 tbsp of sugar, added a pinch of agar agar and
made a jelly to be topped with a little yogurt, the strawberries and some edible violets.
Arantxa got the biggest strawberry!

I am very lucky to have a little veggie garden, but even if you don't have a garden there are many community gardens where work and produce are shared, and the results are amazing. Just watch this short video to see a truly inspiring community garden in New Brighton, Christchurch. And my father-in-law is featuring too, walking around the gardens! He is having an operation tomorrow so I would like to wish him the very best. Over to the video now:

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Video by The Tindall Foundation

Terra Madre Day Celebrations in Waitakere

Terra Madre Day Celebrations in Waitakere

Terra Madre Day with the Community Garden

Slow Food had a double celebration this year. The weekend preceding Terra Madre Day saw a community celebrating its garden and for us in Slow Food, celebrating the creation of our Slow Food plot in that garden and our first very successful class of children learning to grow their own food.

There were many visitors amazed at the work that had been done. The politicians present mentioned how good it was to see Slow Food complementing other community initiatives. They were impressed with us. Many guests were gifted half a cabbage (they were big) and an onion – all grown in the Slow Food plot.

We then feasted on delicious food grown in the garden – the children’s class made monstrous coleslaw with fresh cabbage, carrots and herbs and Karen made a broad bean dip with cumin and garlic and baked a loaf of rye bread to eat it with. Carlos and Chris planted beans and sweet peas around the edge of the fence. Alessandra did a great job talking to everyone about the benefits of joining Slow Food. Mimmo’s mouth watered as he eyed a few more artichokes ready for his delicate cooking.

The children made a scarecrow from old clothes and hay, buttons for eyes and mouth, and then raced around finding little gifts under the beetroot and silver beet leaves.

All in all it was a good day and for those of us in Slow Food, much more exposure for what we do and many positive comments about how we are doing it.

Karen Perri

Terra Madre Day at the Oratia Farmers Market

On Saturday 12 December Slow Food Waitakere celebrated Terra Madre Day at the local farmers market. We had a stall promoting Slow Food, and many visitors throughout the morning. Slow Food Waitakere members and producers received purple bean seedlings to put in their gardens, and we also distributed literature and info about Slow Food.

Thank you all for your support, and see you at the next event.

Alessandra Zecchini