It was a beautiful autumn Saturday down at the Eveleigh Farmers’ Markets this morning, and despite the grief of the locals over Bob Brown’s just-announced retirement, all the usual suspects were there: the schnoodles, the hipsters, the middle-aged dads riding skateboards, the pencil-thin gay girls wearing t-shirts proclaiming, “Prevent Pregnancy! Become a Lesbian!”. Oh, and some very good food:

This fellow, from Melanda Park Free Range Pork,where they breed free-range pigs as big as Volkswagens, sold us a gorgeous piece of pork shoulder – or “Boston butt” as we call it back home – which is destined for the smoker:

He’s built himself his own offset smoker, and we had a long chat about barbeque. Having spent time in both Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, he told me he far preferred the latter – the bad weather and “too many hippies” really got on his nerves in the Pacific Northwest. My kinda fellow.

Oh, and who have we here?

Why, none other than celebrity chef Tony Bilson, whose restaurant empire blew up spectacularly leaving bad debts, burnt creditors, and a whopping great payroll tax debt in his wake, selling steak sandwiches and his new line of Tony Bilson at Home products. You can’t keep a good man down.