food

Well, I have made two sublime meals with the artichokes either as side dishes or as part of the meal. Today I cooked a couple of small ones, took the hearts out, a did a dish of barley and fresh broad beans, with a bit of butter and chopped fresh parsley and mint - and chopped artichoke hearts - with wallaby meatballs. Eh, wonderful. The smell of the fresh herbs at the last minute on the barley was a feast in itself.

Yesterday we ate big artichokes as a starter - just pulling the scales off and dipping them in butter, before a pasta with calamari tentacles, clam-fritters and a little bacon and shredded silverbeet and a little fresh sage. The effect of the artichokes was to make the calamari taste almost exactly like crayfish.

Not bad for meals for two for under a dollar each - which is what I try to keep us to (these two were probably WAY under. Only the pasta, the barley and single piece of bacon got bought). A friend of mine back in South Africa - who also earns US dollars was saying how they were battling to survive and feed their kids properly. Other things here are very expensive, but at least we have cut food costs and still eat quite well.