Dragging ourselves out of bed and into the misty first light of

Saturday morning to make the annual pilgrimage to the Simon Johnson Warehouse Sale was a purely selfless act.  Believe that and you’d believe anything.  In fact it is

a most self indulgent and avaricious duty which we perform each year in the hope to snag a bargain, stock up the pantry and meet with the “man” himself.  Always in attendance at this monumental event, Simon Johnson stands at the door to greet his devotees as they enter the vast depot that houses his extensive store of goodies.  Far from unapproachable, Simon is easy to talk to, warm and friendly – a clever marketing tool and one that Kylie Kwong also uses , greeting her  fans at her stall at Eveleigh Markets – no pomp or pageantry , just a friendly face at one with the public.

The sale opens at 8am and we knew that to avoid being last on the long queue we would have to be there probably a good hour before hand . Each year the line starts earlier,  gets longer  and if not mistaken, seems to be getting a little more aggressive.   On arrival we still find ourselves well along the line, in fact through the carpark and onto the kerb. You can feel the anticipation building and the shopper before us in line is so wound up she’s deeply involved in her yoga routine, centering herself and preparing for combat.   We seriously consider a tent for next year. However, once through the door and face to face with Simon, all is well with the world.  Trolley in hand  it’s each man for himself as the flurry of arms and body parts intertwine with each other, reaching  and grabbing for greatly reduced gastronomic quarry.  Sensibly, there is some amount of regulation as the second wave of gourmet hunters are held back at the door while the first lot of us are still inside ferreting around in epicurean heaven.  Frantically searching for the 1kg bags of porcini mushrooms we picked up

last year, we’re somewhat disappointed that this year there are none.  Nevertheless, we make ourselves happy in the face of adversity and  satisfy ourselves with 1kg  blocks of Valrhona chocolate  ($14.98), 500g bags of plump Carnaroli and Vialone Nano rices ($1.87), Dutchy biscuits ($1.81), 250g Lescure butter ($4.84), organic pestos, basil and wild rocket ($1.46), jars of caperberries ($0.81), Ortiz anchovies 110 gm ($15.47), little bottles of truffle oil ($1.97) and Bottle Green cordials ($1.22) to name a few of the bargains we bagged.

A moderate sized counter of table wares and knives also included a couple of copies of El Bulli cookbook, but at $299.00 we had to show some restraint so unfortunately we passed them by and moved on to the cheese counter.

Full rounds of double cream French chesses for $20.00 was a bargain and very generous chunks of tasting pieces

were being offered around.   The queue to the registers was now extensive so while one was parked and trolley minding, the other scurried around to see what we may have missed.  In doing so, the contents of the trolley seemed to double quickly, but so too did the savings (that’s the old shoppers justifiction plea).  Despite the odd push-er-in-er and frantic procurer who felt it necessary to lurch infront to grab one of the last few hundred jars of lemon infused olives and then run over your feet with her trolley to hurriedly snatch a jar of passatta which was unfortunately dropped and smashed on the warehouse floor (karma) causing more congestion as

it was cleaned up  (yes – you know who you are) most people were very well behaved and  followed the simple rules of battle.

So as we left the back streets of Alexandria,  chuffed with our purchases (and savings) we already start to make our plans of attack for the 2012 sale.  We’re off to Anaconda to investigate the prospects of that tent………..

Keep an eye on Simon Johnsons web site for information regarding the next sale. Usually around June each year.