It is far too long since I last visited the Good Living Growers’ Market at Pyrmont.  I have always loved its waterside location at Pyrmont Bay which has to be one of the best sites ever.
 
Last Saturday – the markets operate on the first Saturday of each month – it was decidedly chilly despite the mid-morning winter sunshine. I could only imagine what it was like when these hardy stallholders (one confessed she had been up since 2am) had arrived to set up their stands in the pre-dawn hours.
 
I was also gobsmacked at how the markets have grown. Last time I seemed to zip around in half an hour. This time the white tented stalls encircle the park and have an inner loop as well.
 
Of course growers’ markets should be taken slowly. You need to touch and taste and talk. The latter is perhaps the most important as the people behind the stands each have a story to tell – usually of a grand dream they might have had to make the best cheese, to revive an artisan food-making skill, or simply to remind people what truly good honest flavour is all about.
 
So equipped with a shopping basket and a couple of friends I slowly made my way along the imposing lineup of stalls, meeting new people and glad to see others from previous visits or other markets. It never ceases to amaze me how some growers, often from distant regions, make it to two or more city markets a month. You can debate the carbon-effectiveness of this of course, but the net result is that hundred of city-siders, who might never make it out of the metropolitan area, have the benefit of these people’s enthusiasm and in the process are introduced to good country food and generosity.
 
I’d arrived with no shopping list, but my aim was clear. I would buy on impulse anything that looked fresh, marvellous and tasty (at that rate I should have purchased everything there as even by 10am it was still dew-fresh and gorgeous, a quantum leap from tired supermarket offerings) and serve it for dinner that evening.
 
Pausing at Dutton Park ducks I passed up on the creamy-fleshed whole birds and indulged my private passion, seduced by a pack of duck, cognac and pistachio sausages. Further along at Robertson Potatoes one massive tuber which resembled a kipfler on steroids, had me  curious. It was the same shape (and doubtless aspiring to become the same size) as the Big Potato or whatever the locals call the dirt-brown concrete sculpture on the highway in Robertson that honours the produce for which this area is so well known.
 
 What is that, I asked, and was told it was a Ponti, a potato bred to be ideal for mashing. Potato lovers were excited to discover it was equally good when prepared in other ways too.
 
OK, so that had two parts of my meal – although definitely not a new concept. Bangers and mash it would be.
 
Further along, Grima’s farm fresh vegetables had been well-visited, but there were still bunches of organic beetroot. Yes, they would go well with the sausages.  Along the way I had been unable to resist La Tartine’s sourdough breads and with great restraint passed over their fruit loaf for a pumpkin bread. I was glad of this when, at the Cowra Smoked stall, I bought a tub of trout spread. This was an appetiser waiting to happen, I decided.
 
That night while the potato was cooking (yes, that one monster served three of us) I toasted very thin slices of pumpkin sourdough and served it cut in small pieces and topped with smoked trout spread, some chopped dill and shreds of cucumber.
 
Later I mashed that massive spud and served it alongside the oven-baked sausages which I’d placed on a bed of cooked beetroot that had been cut into very small cubes then briefly reheated and sauced with some Tabletop Grapes Vincotto that I had been given on a Mildura trip a few weeks ago. The sweet fruity flavours worked perfectly with the duck, although in cherry season I would cut fresh pitted cherries in half and add them to the beetroot for an extra textural contrast. It’s funny isn’t it how colours often also coordinate in taste, and I like the surprise factor of camouflaging same-colour yet very different ingredients in the one dish.
 
The potato, of course, was magnificent. A REAL potato, full of flavour, wonderfully floury and a credit to its grower. The sausages too were studded with more pistachios than I had dared hope for, and the  chunky pieces  of duck were juicy and delicious – enough to make my mouth water right now, just talking about them.
 
 Of course collecting a basket of goodies on a trip to the country is magnificent, but for those of us with limited free time who still want to eat like country lords, you can hardly do better than take advantage of the growers coming to you at a  market in a city or a large regional centre.
 
For markets all over the country see the Markets listing on this site.