March 17th, 2024Kyle’s Rant

By the time you read this the feathers will have settled, the pink boas put away to live another day and the glitter swept from the floor.

My prudish inner self does have to ask about the dudes dressed as dogs in the parade though, I think they were maybe just a couple of chums who got mixed up in the ChillOut vibe. And after all each to their own, right?

I have seen those guys before in other ChillOut parades but have never gotten as close, almost close enough to get bitten. For now I’ll park that image way down the back of my mind where the elephants go to die.

Speaking of vibes and jarring segues, there is definitely an autumn vibe in the air, granted it’s still a bit hot to pay it too much attention, but the apples are definitely ripening on the tree.

Shortly the mushrooms will be out, and the foragers foraging, but not me. After last year’s deadly Leongatha lunch the only place I will be prospecting for non hallucinogenic fungi is Tonnas – where there is a fabulous range all sorted for you and grown in places with humidity control, not in the wild.

A lot of our local eateries like to put these naturally unearthed meals on the menu, which up until last year seemed like a fabulous nostalgic notion of nosh, but it’s no thanks from me.

I like my grub to be rummaged up the old-fashioned way, straight from a quality controlled factory just the way the good Lord intended. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the nudity of food and I love the thought of kindly killed meats and naturally grown fruit and vegetables from the paddock to the plate.

However, when it comes to the subject of fungus the deadly ones look a little too similar to the yummy ones and there are not many people that I would trust to know the difference. Except for maybe our own Central Highlands fungi fanatic Alison Pouliot, who is not always on hand to pick my mushies.

But back to my autumn vibe. Some of the leaves have already started to turn on our trees and the harvest has started to make an appearance at our local markets.

I give the bird and spit in the general direction of Christmas and call this bit “the most wonderful time of the year”. In another month or so we will be able to burn our wood piles down the back of the yard while swilling red wine and gobbling down the last of the harvest offerings.

But for now, we are still in the thick of festival season, a plethora of culinary cuisine awaits our attentions and the days are still long.

Autumn vibe rant over…