I really, really love shopping in Footscray. Dad used to have his business there for some forty years, so I remember jumping off at the train station if I'd been up in Melbourne, and walking down the streets through to his office, where I'd catch a ride with him some hour a way to the coast. It was sooo different to our very white country town - it was renowned for being a place where the Vietnamese settled, and remain to this day. One of the markets there is called Little Saigon, which gives some indication of the flavour of the area, although if you go across the highway it's all Indian shops, dosa and the like.

The Footscray Market is in fact only 41 years old, although you'd expect it to be older, it's such an instition. I love how if you arrive early, there are street style hawkers there selling Vietnamese food which I can never identify as the signs are always in Vietnamese!

In the outer aisles of the market there are a few stalls that sell cookware such as woks, ceramic cookware, grills and the like, as well as baskets and plasticware, and cheap synthetic clothing. The Queen Victoria it is not - it's nowhere near as big and if you want to buy ug boots and other things it's the central Melbourne market you want.

The seafood sellers are plentiful - from mudcrabs to bass, snapper to eel, you'll find everything here, but unlike the Queen Vic, it's hard to tell what's sustainable and what's been overfished in Asia and frozen. There's also plenty of meat stalls too if that's what you need.

What I'm really here for though are the vegetables and herbs that I either can't get where I live, or they are very expensive for little. I love cooking with fresh herbs, particularly coriander and thai basil, so I get big bunches of those. However, I just like to look at them, and watch other people carefully inspect them, weighing up the quality and the price - a very different shopper to those in more affluent suburbs. Of course it's largely Asians too that buy familiar herbs that go in their family meals.

From snake beans to green papaya, asparagus to artichoke, choi sum to tatsoi, everything you need for a stir fry or a soup is here. I buy a box of mangoes as they are in season and some green papaya as I love green papaya salad, and a kilo of green jalapeno for fermenting a hot sauce.

Everything is a lot cheaper here too - prices have gone up everywhere so it's no suprise they have gone up here too, but they are still much better than the supermarket prices and fresher too. I hear the market sellers call in their traditional way, an aural experience you dont' get elsewhere.

You can also get pho and other Vietnamese food inside the market, but there's also a place selling empanadas and an Indonesian take away as well. I get a vegetable lumpia or spring roll - I'm not hungry yet and my son is cooking me lunch. He only lives five minutes up the road so it's part of the reason I'm here - I can shop and see the grandchild. Happy day indeed!

And if you're not a meat eater, never fear - out on the street there's a vegan restaurant too. And if you go around the corner, there's an amazing vegan Ethiopian place called Queen of Sheba that I love.

There's a whole heap of Asian grocery stores along the street too - I stop in as I've run out of korean chilli paste and noodles, and also pick up some tofu and sesame seeds whilst I'm here.

There's also tons of places to get your fix of Asian food, a very popular Vietnamese bakery, and a Cheaper By Miles, which is a kinda discount store where you can buy discounted food. I pick up four blocks of halloumi for ten bucks which is a bargain, some coffee flavoured oat milk for summer smoothies, and some olive tapenade. I also pick up a few treats for my son and his girl, as I don't like to go empty handed. I think it's kinda becoming expected that I rock up with my basket and they peer in for treats like the children they no longer are!

Lucky I didn't eat as my son had made a beautiful chick pea curry. I'd recommended he go to the Indian grocers and buy a shahi paneer spice mix which is amazing in veggie curries and when he did he also bought some frozen paratha which you heat in a pan, and I bloody love paratha so I was pretty happy. Clearly we love our cooking and definitely are not the meat and two veg types!

When I get home I make a kind of vegetarian noodle dish with fried tofu and mushrooms as my mushrooms are growing so much I can barely keep up with them. With fresh jalapeno and fresh thai basil the taste was sooo good! There's really something special about fresh food from the market. The recipe is a simple one - fry tofu in oil with a splash of soy sauce, and fry the mushrooms separately with a splash of sesame oil at the last minute. Make a stock whilst that's happening - just vegetable stock, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of lime juice, some grated ginger, garlic and spring onions - and then add some greens until they are tender, and pour over cooked noodles, then top with tofu, mushrooms and herbs. Voila. It's a very quick, hearty and delicous meal!

As for little Ned, he's five weeks old now and beginning to chunk up after being born at 35 weeks. The parents are settling in nicely and of course are tired but in love, as I am with the little mite. Many kisses and squishes of the little lad saw me right til next week where I'll visit again as well as visit the markets for my fresh veggies fix and feeling of being in another country, which I miss - the sights, smells, tastes that are different to the rural country town in which I live.

Viva la Footscray Market.

`With Love,`

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An International Market in Melbourne's West: Plus, The Grandmunchkin & Noodles for Tea

With Love,

`With Love,`