Jamie Oliver visits Ipswich tomorrow...

Tomorrow Jamie Oliver finally gets to see his first Australian Ministry of Food Cooking school in person. We, the volunteers & the trainers, are excited that he will be able to find out in person what a difference it has made to peoples' lives both in Ipswich & to those that have come from further afield to join the program. I personally love nothing better than to see someone become animated with excitement when they've learnt & put into practice a new skill or discovered a new food or just learnt an interesting nutritional/food fact.  It gets us all excited & inspired & that is priceless! 

Ad borrowed from the local paper...ssssh!

Ipswich will be very crowded tomorrow I imagine with legions of adoring fans hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite TV chef...or maybe they'll be trying to bribe their way into the ticket holders area...scaling fences even...hahaha, my imagination was getting away from me!

500 lucky people have (free) tickets to watch his cooking demo  close up at 1pm. These tickets were offered online by 'The Goodguys' (sponsors) & they were snapped up in under 15 minutes...luckily, we volunteers all get a ticket each & a lovely friend had a spare ticket for Mousie...thankyou friend ;-)

My interesting contribution for the day is some herbal set dressing. On Tuesday (my volunteering day) I took in a heap of coriander, from my garden, to be planted in the MOF herb garden (recycled wheelbarrow). This wheelbarrow is parked out the front of the centre during the day for people going past to pick/taste/smell. While the bucket of coriander (recycled honey bucket) was sitting on the bench waiting to be planted one of tomorrows organisers asked where it had come from & could we get any more. Pick me, pick me...Apparently it is needed for the cooking set & she wasn't able to get any plants just the right size...she had some pots but no herbs. Yay for me...I won't get to meet him but my herbs will...classic!

All potted up & ready for duty...

The painted (white) pots with saucers are ones we had at the MOF...the browny ones came from ikea (no holes, no saucers...I did say" I could drill some holes but you have no saucers" but was told not to bother...Arrrg....

This morning after careful nurturing & snipping...disaster...

OMG...carked coriander!!!

3 out of the 4 browny, unholey, bloody ikea pots contained pretty well 'carked coriander'...should I dare an "I told you so"? A quick trip to the local nursery (locally owned),  $8  & 2 pots of coriander later...plus a quick dig of the lemon thyme from my garden and....

The day is saved!! Phew! I have asked that instead of reimbursement I get to take the herbs home after the event & give them a good home (again) plus the pots which will feel the bite of my drill bit! *evil laugh aimed at  the browny pots*

I will return tomorrow with news of the event...

For those that are interested it will be live-streamed  online tomorrow from 1pm (non daylight saving Eastern Standard time)  but I couldn't tell you as yet the web address for that.

xxx