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Thinking creatively
Farro Fresh has taken the Auckland speciality food market by storm over recent years, and I was delighted to be invited to do tastings in their new North Shore store recently. They asked me to showcase the Olivo Smoked Chilli Infused Oil in particular, so it was time for creative thinking about WOW factors and innovative flavour combos.
The answer: Smoked Chilli Oil on dark chocolate sorbet, plus a dash of cayenne.
To be honest, some shoppers needed a bit of encouragement to taste, but the response was universal acclaim. After all, the Aztecs combined chilli and chocolate centuries ago.
All you need to do is drizzle oil over a scoop or two of high quality chocolate sorbet (ice-cream works well too) and scatter cayenne pepper artistically around. Dessert for 10 in four minutes – how good is that?
The Smoked Chilli Oil is also excellent with salmon, mussels, tomatoes and roasted root vegetables. If you have other recommendations please let me know – I love hearing about culinary creativity in kitchens all around the country.
And by the way, Farro Fresh happily sold a great deal of Smoked Chilli Oil that day and as a bonus, sold out of chocolate sorbet!
Kirk's Gourmet Food Centre
Kirkcaldie & Stains is a much-loved Wellington institution with a modern attitude. Its discerning clientele spans generations and it’s often described as ‘destination shopping’.
Kirks is the only Wellington store to stock the entire Olivo range – Extra Virgin as well as Infused oils – so if there’s something special you want this is the place to go.
To help celebrate the new Gourmet Food Centre, on the Ground floor in the Harbour City Centre (across Brandon St from the main store), I will be there doing a tasting on Easter Saturday, 23 April, 11am – 3pm.
You know I like olive oil with ice-cream, so this time I’ll showcase Olivo Orange Infused Oil with vanilla ice-cream and shavings of rich dark chocolate.
It’s always a hit, so please come in and try it or for yourself and say hello.
Harvest nears at the grove
As nights cool down in Martinborough, the sense of anticipation at Olivo heightens. Harvest is only weeks away and the trees are telling their annual story. Green olives are giving way to straw colours as ripening progresses, and already some show signs of black. The grove’s usual silvery beauty is becoming a mosaic of colour.
Hot days heat up the trees and cold nights cool them down again in the classic cycle: ideal conditions for flavoursome olive oil. Recent rain will help our yield, although we don’t want too much more now until picking starts in early June. We are typical horticulturists - never completely happy about the weather we have to deal with!
Olives tend to be biennial – a good year followed by a slower year. The 2010 harvest was 16 tonnes; but a windy December literally blew flowers from the trees and consequently we have less fruit this year. So who knows what we could get? We always have our annual pickers’ sweepstake around harvest time so I will save my predictions until then.
Getting ready
Queen’s Birthday Weekend traditionally kicks off the harvest so it’s preparation time right now.
We are busy cleaning nets, testing and servicing the 11 feet tall hydraulic rakes that bring down elusive fruit from the tallest trees, and generally giving the grove a good tidy-up to ease picking. We use few sprays anyway as part of our sustainability programme, but all spraying ceases within 40-60 days of harvest.
Our beagle Sophie’s contribution is to run around a lot and sit on the nets.
Most importantly, we are confirming our picking team is ready to go. In addition to our regular four pickers, John will be a full-time member of the team for the first time after retiring from his accountancy practice. A big change from sitting at a desk!
I do hope you like the 'new look' newsletter. We will be producing one for each season. For weekly updates, do also follow us on Facebook  and Twitter
Best regards
Helen
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