Hurstbridge was cold. It’s always cold in Hurstbridge, except in summer when it’s as hot as hell. Maybe I’ve just never visited in spring or autumn. It was the monthly Sunday farmers’ market. I don’t usually like markets when they’re full of trinkets and junk and strawberry soap, but this one is different. The market rambles across open space on the river flat below the main street, just north of where the train line ends in a pile of junk in the old rail yards. The children were queuing for pony rides at the edge of the market grounds where Diamond Creek meanders through the eucalypts, so I went over to the Grand Ridge Brewery stall just to admire the labels on the bottles. No cutting edge minimalism here. Each label has the magnificent Grand Ridge Brewery lyrebird logo over different background colours to indicate which beer variant it is. Handy, because you don’t want to be reading small type late at night when you reach into the fridge for your seventh beer, especially when the...
Recipes and ruminations from a small house in a big city.