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The bees knees

We visited the Queen Victoria Market today.  As always, it was full of good stuff - fresh meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables and herbs.  I love all the deli shops too, but my favourite is the honey shop.  
I bought two lovely jars of honey.  One is a delicious floral honey from a mix of orange blossom and blackberry flowers.  
The second one is extraordinary.  It comes from the flowers of wild grasses, just a small patch growing near Bendigo.  The bee keeper managed to fill 44 jars this summer, and look at the detail on the label, particularly the 'before before' date, because, of course, honey keeps for ever!  This one is rich and dark, and tastes almost like a caramel syrup.  It's amazing honey, and I am delighted to have one of the 44 jars from this year's batch!
Melbourne's wonderful cook book shop, Books for Cooks, has moved across town and, sensibly, repositioned itself just across the road from all those wonderful fresh ingredients being sold in the market.
After the bookshop, we walked back through the other market stalls selling all the tourist fripperies.  My granddaughter wanted to buy a souvenir soft toy koala.  They were all pretty awful, until we found a lovely stall selling handmade puppets, which, although horribly expensive, were rather irresistible!  So Ozzie the koala is coming home with us!  You can see him lined up here, on the far right, with his other outback pals!
And then on to my favourite Melbourne cafe, Beatrix, in North Melbourne, where we had some lunch.  A good day!


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