The Adlington Post

On Sunday I met Penny Millen from "Naturallynz" who sells a very popular line of healthy dog food - www.naturallynz.com

A few days ago John Early, the Curator of Entomology at Auckland War Memorial Museum, generously gave me some of his valuable time to discuss insects & their edibility, & 'extreme food". Our conversation ranged over kelp flies, centepides, bee larvae, crickets, algae, unusual meals in our travels, huhu grubs, mealworms, snails....& much more... Some incredible edibles! Tiger slugs Huhu grubs & beetle When I asked John about the dangers of eating venomous creatures such as scorpions or spiders, he said that as their poisons are protein-based, they are rendered harmless by heat, tho he cautioned that tarantula fangs are best removed before consumption of the spider. We had a fascinating chat about "what Auckland eats" - now that we have a very ethnically-diverse population here, there is far more on offer than there was even 15 years ago. There are English, South African, Chinese, & Indian speciality food stores here now, & we wo...

Check out my latest video - a packet of noodle soup combined with fresh seaweed from the beach & herbs & spices to make a delicious & nutritious meal.... For more on food see www.pavlovasdog.webs.com For my cooking videos see www.youtube.com/martinadlington

The other day in the city I bought some salmon bellies [$4.00 a kilo!], & someone generously gave me a fresh schnapper on Friday [thanks Kerry!]. I scaled & filleted the schnapper & marinated some of it with the salmon overnight in a mixture of 1 teaspoon each of salt & raw sugar, with the juice of a lemon, & some dill. On Saturday afternoon I set the smoker up in the back garden, with 3 handfulls of manuka sawdust inside. I laid the fish along with some fresh asparagus stalks onto tinfoil, put this on the grill inside the smoker, poured half a cup of meths into the burner - lit the meths, & placed the burner under the smoker. The meths took about 10 minutes to burn out, I then turned the fish, added more sawdust, refilled the burner & let it burn out then sit for a while. The result was delicious! - eaten with refried beans & watercress salad. The meths is a bit messy, so I have bought a small LPG cannister for my camping stove to us...

Today I did a dumpster dive in the industrial estate around the corner, & came away with a few items - notably a 3D "Viewmaster" & a dozen slides for it, all Disney cartoons: Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Micky Mouse, 1953 & 1959. I just them before the rain came down, another 5 minutes & they would have been badly soaked.