Going bananas over budgets

After seeing a photo on a tourism brochure of a fruit cocktail with a banana posed like a dolphin with its mouth open, eating one will never be the same. I decided to write about bananas after spending two weeks in north Queensland, where 94% of the fruit is grown. I had also recently learned of the re-emergence of Panama disease, coined ‘Bananageddon’ by some droll headline writer. The threat of disease not withstanding, Australian banana…

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Farmers Rejoice As Rain Boosts Crops

It wasn’t really Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans who inspired me to write about wheat and how we so much take the bread of life for granted. As you may have noticed, we spent last week cruising around the tiny hamlets of Yelarbon, Talwood and Thallon, part of the south-western Downs grain belt. At Talwood and Thallon in particular, the landscape is dominated by man-made mountain ranges of wheat, pinned down under blue tarpaulins. This takes…

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