Taking the Good with the Bad

Although Tom beat me to the chase on posting about the Waitangi Park Markets I thought I would supplement his post with a few secrets from the markets he may just have overlooked.

What I’ve enjoyed about the markets, apart from hauling my sorry tuckus out of bed at 8 or 9am on a Sunday, is the way it’s something of a little community.

Mind you, it’s a community made up of people whose names I don’t know, and there’s even a few I forgot to photograph. But you get the gist.

Vension guy here, for example, sells some pretty good salami. They’re brought in from some wholesaler called BaseCamp. We’ve got one hanging in the pantry gradually aging. It’s covered in a white mold and is starting to get properly stinky. Will probably use it on a pizza, or maybe in an antipasto of some kind.

This guy on the other hand might look like the fishmonger from the Asterix books, but he actually makes a pretty good variety of rustic breads.

We call him, “the nine-grain man”, because makes this fantastic bread. Keeps for about a week, and takes a whole lot of eating. It’s not delicate and refined like Moulin Bakery, but… who cares! You need to be making doorstop sandwiches? Get on down the market.

The sign about says it all in the case of these people. They’re relatively new to the markets, but have been making a splash. The lamb is incredibly inexpensive (but not cheap), and they’ll bring down an entire carcass cut to your specifications.

We’ve a rolled shoulder sitting in the freezer just asking to be roasted with some rosemary.

But, of all the secrets of the market, this unassuming stall is the greatest. And I’m giving it away to you, dear reader.

These guys (Vietnamese? Cambodian? Dunno) sell the best fresh herbs anywhere in the city. Their coriander is incredibly cheap at $1 a bunch for example. But… they also have bunches of kaffir lime leaves for ONE DOLLAR! That’s a saving of $4 over the local New World. There’s also a bunch of other Asian spices I don’t really understand…

So. Get yourself up out of that hangover and get yourself down to the markets for some super-fresh, super-hardy plants. There’s even some fresh meat for the omnivores, and deep-fried meat on a stick for those tender stomachs.

No decent coffee in sight tho. There might be a business opportunity in that.