Getting good sox

Now this is a serious matter. Decent socks make all the difference this time of year, especially when your best chance to recover from a cold is to stay warm (it’s also a good way to avoid them. It’s called a cold for a good reason.)

The trouble is though, the majority of socks on the market these days at the low end are made of acrylic/cotton blends with minimal amounts of wool. This makes them cheaper, but they wear out really rapidly. This results in the need to buy more socks, and you might just as well have bought flash woolen ones.

I’d solved this conundrum by going the middle ground but for one fact. The art of darning socks seems to be rapidly disappearing. Certainly I could condemn myself or my partner to an hour of sock-darning, but seen as neither of us is skilled in this matter it’s simply not worth the needle-pricks.

But… +$30 for a pair of something like Norsewool is just so damn much. Especially when you need at least 3 pairs to get through a week of sitting in shonky office airconditioning.

Tips? On either decent value socks? Or on getting darning up to scratch (including on the cheap Farmer’s ones)

More reasons to luuuurve Moore Wilsons.

I found a 3kg tin of roasted capsicums for $12, and a whopping 700g tin of anchovies for $15!

Now, 80g tins of anchovies normally sell for about $5, so that’s too much of a deal to go past. Mind you, if you hardly eat anchovies then… don’t bother. But me I think they should be in almost everything.

The peppers are good in pasta dishes during the winter when peppers are both out of season and very expensive.

Bargains at the markets

If you hurry down to the markets this morning you can get some pretty decent bargains. Not only this 800g jar of home-made tomato relish for $4.50, but other great deals including:

• Asparagus for $1.50 a bunch for the larger, slightly woody varieties, but $1.80 for the thin, tender stalks
• Bananas for $2kg
• Agria potatoes for $2.50kg
• New Zealand hothouse tomatoes (i.e. not any imported varieties) for $3kg
• Other great deals.

And don’t forget to buy a coffee, a crepe, fresh hand-made sausages, Waiora lamb, fish directly off the yummy dumplings, home-made cakes and biscuits, fresh Rewena, or pastries.