Monday 2 February 2015

Whales, Turmeric and Seville Oranges


Kaikoura, in New Zealand where we were on this day last year,




 spotting Hump Back Whales, from a boat with a brilliant Maori crew,


 who knew where to find them, unusually close to land, this one spouting from its blow hole.



They recognised them by their markings, they all had names,


and told us when to get our cameras ready to capture the few precious seconds of



 the famous tail dive.  We were really lucky to see seven different whales -  I loved being so close to these wild giant creatures - it was a huge highlight of our trip.


The highlight ingredient of supper tonight was this knob of fresh turmeric,


which I chopped up and added to the onions, garlic, chilli and ginger for the coconut lentil Dahl I was making.  I have used it before - a long time ago in my Sharwood days - but I was delighted by its gorgeous almost perfumed fragrance and bright carroty orange colour - so unlike its usual dried powdered version.

We ate the Dahl with some very good vegetable samosas and onion bhajis that I found in the chiller cabinets at Waitrose this afternoon. I went in to buy Seville oranges to make marmalade but couldn't resist a little browse in the aisles as I had the luxury of shopping on my own while my husband was in the TLC of a friend for a few hours. 

I'm really trying to avoid shopping in supermarkets this year - wanting to shop locally, eat locally grown food and not clock up all those food miles. But not ready to give up making marmalade yet...and fresh turmeric is too good to ignore especially if I can walk to the local Indian shop down the road to buy it.





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