Local Loves - Tumut Op Shop

I have an addiction. It comes upon me each time I go to Tumut -  one of the palindromic towns of Australia.
Each time I am in Tumut I drop into the op shop and see what I can find. The last couple of trips have yielded this little beauties.

A pretty pastel coloured hand crochet baby cot blanket.

The squares are tiny which makes me think that perhaps they had been bigger and that the blanket was once washed in hot water resulting in a shrinking and a slight felting of the blanket -  it's so soft,

Price? - $1.00

 A range of printed table cloths - I'm a bit of a table cloth girl.  This one featuring the towns, rivers and scenes of New South Wales.

This one, an abundance of fruit, food, wine and strangely, with a gravy boat!

And this one featuring 'The Exotic Wildflowers of  Western Australia' which is a little strange because surely they are not exotic at all?  Instead they are native wildflowers?

Price? All $1.00 each.

I have also picked up a great and near new leather coat for $20!

Of course what I have now done is drawn attention to my favourite shopping haunt and I will probably never find such little treasures again, but then again, I guess not many of my readership find themselves in Tumut?

Local Loves - fruit, fish and cider

Today I spent the cool  early hours of the day cooking up apricot jam. Yesterday I visited Golden Meadows Orchards just outside of Adelong to buy some locally grown fruit. Their sign declaring Figs and Apricots was too tempting and I decided to turn off the Snowy Mountains Hwy up their broad and well made dirt road to purchase. I came home with half a tray of fat black figs,

and just over two kilos of apricots. Here they are with stones removed ready to be made into jam.

After the stones came out there was 1.7 kgs of fruit and to that I added 600gm of raw sugar, the juice of a lemon and the rind of the lemon.With just a little water it cooked quickly up into a lovely orange jammyness. It made 6 jars and a little glass bowlful with will go on a batch of home-made scones.















All this local goodness got me thinking about the other local produce I have discovered and am really enjoying.

I am positively addicted to eating the local smoked trout. Just with a bit of  brown bread and a squeeze of lemon, with udon noodles, a few finely sliced veg and a spicy black bean and chilli sauce, or in a potato-type salad with poached eggs and chives it's all delicious and much cheaper here than in Sydney where I never bought it.

I have no real expertise in food and alcohol combos other than knowing what I like, but to me smoked trout goes pretty well with another local product - cider. (I may of course have a very weird palate!)

This is my favourite of The Apple Thief ciders, they have a Granny Smith and a Williams Pear one as well. It goes down a little too easily and is a delicious crisp drink for a hot afternoon (which we have had way too many of recently). It's from pretty Batlow - not too far from here and one of Australia's apple growing hubs

I am really enjoying exploring a new part of the country, it's food and people. I think I might share a post occasionally of the things I find locally that I love.

Anyone got a favourite way of eating smoked trout? What do you think cider goes with food-wise?

(Just a note to readers - I have not been paid  to profile these products. I just think they are delicious and thought you might find them so too.)