G'day JennieG,

We bought "Gwydir Grove olive oil infused with bush herbs" down the road at the Saturday morning Organic Growers' Market in the grounds of Orange Grove Public School .. some time back. Very nice it was, too!

I don't know if the same seller will stay over for the Sunday Organic Growers' Market the Addison Rd Community Centre, Marrickville ... but I'll be organising the Bush Music Club Concert Party to play some music there in the new year. We could even try a few simple dances (on the tarmac area - so they would be pretty basic) ... how's your calling going?

General Posting:

We made the "Red Heart" (Central Australia: Uluru / Kata Tjuta [Ayers Rock / Olgas] - Watarrke [Kings Canyon] - Alice Springs - Woomera - Ikara [Wilpena Pound]) trip last September - October, and brought back two very tasty sauces from Desert Pride. This is a firm, built around Mike and Gayle Quarmby, of Reedy Creek Nuseries, in South Australia, that has been developing "Bush Tucker" (the traditional outback foods collected and eaten by the Indigenous people of the region) as commercial crops and value-added products. They have 'trialled' some 65 species and are now supplying fresh "desert greens" and an assortment of sauces and preserves ... to South Australian and Northern Territory supermarkets and specialist shops. All the plants selected and bred (often clonally, from the best examples) are being supplied only to indigenous groups, who are also being given assistance in developing plantations and profitable business techniques.

The two sauces we had were a "Quandong Dessert Sauce" - based on Santalum acuminatum - "Quandong" (an important desert fruit) and "Kutjera Sauce" - a savoury sauce based on Solanum centrale - "Desert Raisin" or "Kutjera" a tangy berry with both sweet and savoury aspects. Both were very enjoyable ... and are now used up.

I'm currently trying to get a reply from the Quarmbys, or Desert Pride, to see if any Sydney outlets carry their lines ... or whether we can buy them directly.

Regards,

Bob