Kumara potatoes & new book

Before coming to New Zealand a friend of mine told me that she had a lot of sweet potatoes when she had visited NZ. She couldn’t remember the name of it. I was looking for these sweet potatoes since I arrived. Finally I found it. A nice lady in an organic grocery (Independent Grocery in Raglan) explained me that NZ’s typical potatoes are called Kumara. The word sounds really funny to me as in Slovene it means cucumber;) However, there are different sorts of Kumara; this time I tried just two. The orange one is sweeter and moister, but both are good. Moreover I learned that in NZ they don’t grow much grain, nearly everything is imported from US, Canada and Asian countries. As I said many times before I try to eat and drink local. I really don’t see any sense having Italian pasta or French cheese in NZ.

Talking about Italy, I have to admit that I bought a book printed in Italy. Traveling around the country I found out that there is a chain of fair trade shops. Despite my doubts that fair trade shops are really what they claim they are (my doubts are even bigger after reading the book Bad science) I entered the one here in Raglan. Beside the classical coffee, tea and chocolate (what I really dislike are the leaflets saying: “Are you sure that your chocolate was not produced by a slave?” For me this is total manipulation – by this I’m not saying that there is no slavery; there is, but I’m not sure that this is the best method to combat it), they didn’t have any food, more cups, plates etc. Well, the point is that I found another book for my rich collection, this time I found Vegetarian main dishes from around the world. There is a variety of recipes from Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, and Middle East & North Africa. Although my quite wide knowledge of vegetarianism, there are some dishes I’ve never heard before, for example Shiro wat, before, for example Shiro wat, Yemesirkik, Aprapransa, Dengu, Nyoyo etc. When back home I’ll have plenty of dishes to prepare;)