’Tis the season….to eat very, very well. Welcome to the December edition of Fresh, market-goers, our last for 2007.
A big thank you to all our loyal customers - you’ve made the Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market what it is today. Most of all, thanks to our brilliant stallholders, without whom we wouldn’t be here at all. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy new year.

Please support the Clevedon Lions by buying your Christmas Tree from the Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market - the Lions do wonderful work in our community. Trees are available from December 2.

THE BIG CHEESE (NEWS)
Time to officially announce the worst-kept secret in Clevedon - fresh, authentic buffalo mozzarella will soon be available exclusively at the Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market. The Market’s very own Richard and Helen Dorresteyn, together with their trusty partners, have managed the arduous task of importing New Zealand’s first group of Riverine milking buffalo. Richard is honing his cheese-making skills (much enhanced by recent lessons in Italy’s premier mozzarella-making region, Campania), and the Clevedon Valley Buffalo Company hopes to have limited quantities of buffalo mozzarella available for sale early in the new year. If you haven’t tasted fresh buffalo mozzarella before, hold onto your hats - it’s something very special.

Staying with cheese, the Clevedon Valley Cheese Company has a limited number of small gouda cheese wheels for sale (about 1kg each) - these are perfect for taking on holiday. They’ve also introduced a new boutique cheese to their range; Sentinel Rock from Mount Eliza Cheese Company. This is a beautiful mould-ripened cheese made in the Cheshire style - mild and smooth with a hint of wild mushroom.

NEW STALLHOLDERS
A big welcome to Bruntwood Farms (asparagus, raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries and Luisa plums); Terry (broccolini); Kingas handmade fudge; Gourmet Cakes & Gifts (homemade Christmas cakes); Queen of Tarts (homemade Christmas mince tarts); The Gelato cart (handmade gelato) and the Clevedon Lions Club (Christmas trees).

SLIPPERY BUSINESS
Last month, we brought you the amazing (and unappetising) true story of commercial bagged salad greens and their unnaturally prolonged lives.
This month, we bring you the equally unappetising true story of commercially-produced table olives and olive oil.
First, to the olives themselves. Most imported olives start life on trees that are regularly and liberally sprayed with pesticides. When picked, they’re soaked in ‘sparging’ tanks that force air bubbles through the olives to artificially oxidise them. Then caustic soda – yep, caustic soda - is added to remove any bitterness before the olives are pasteurised and packaged. A handy tip: if the black olives you’re eating are a uniform glossy black colour, they’ve probably been picked before they’re ripe and artificially coloured (black olives that are picked ripe are various shades of dark green and brown).
‘Real’ olives, however – like the ones grown and packed by Whitford’s own River Estate Olive Oil – are picked ripe, steeped in filtered rain water for three to five weeks (until they’re softened), then put in a brine solution of white vinegar and sea salt for around eight weeks. Then they’re bottled and brought to the Clevedon Farmers Market. Simple. River Estate olives are also pesticide and herbicide free.
Continued from previous page...

Now to the bad oil. Most supermarket brand imported olive oils are made from olives that are pressed above 35 degrees Celsius to squeeze as much oil out as possible. This process, unlike cold-pressing, increases the (bad) fatty acid content of the oil. The oil is then refined using chemical filters, resulting in a thin, comparatively bland product that has lost much of its natural goodness.
River Estate and other ‘boutique’ olive oils, however, are made from ripe olives that are cold-pressed within 24 hours of picking. The result is a thick, fresh, aromatic oil with an extremely low fatty acid content (0.1%), which means that it retains its goodness when heated.
As for the taste difference - well, try for yourself.

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

Delices D’Argenteuil

The French region Argenteuil, outside of Paris, is famous for its asparagus. As is the region between Cambridge and Hamilton, as asparagus-loving market-goers know - because that’s where Bruntwood Farms hail from (if you haven’t tried their asparagus yet, you’re committing a crime against gastronomy).
This luscious dish with its combination of simple perfectly complimentary flavours is the perfect light meal or midnight snack especially when matched with a glass of champagne this Christmas.

Ingredients (makes eight small pancakes)

For the filling

• 4 thin pieces proscuitto (Hungarian Deli or Bentru Foods), sliced in half lengthways
  
• 16 Bruntwood Farms asparagus spears, cooked to your liking

For the pancakes

• 2 Nature’s Corner free range eggs, plus one egg yolk
  
• 250ml milk
  
• 2 tbsp melted butter
  
• salt and pepper
  
• 90g flour
  
• extra melted butter for cooking

For the hollandaise sauce

• 3 egg yolks
  
• 200g melted butter
  
• juice of half a lemon
  
• salt and white pepper

Method
Make the pancake batter first. Put eggs, egg yolk, milk, melted butter and seasonings in a blender, and blend on a slow speed. Add the sifted flour in a slow stream. Pass the mixture through a sieve and leave to rest for at least an hour (this recipe makes more pancakes than you’ll need - they keep well and can be used the next day).
To make the hollandaise, whisk the egg yolks with a splash of water in a stainless steel bowl over barely simmering water, until thick. Add the melted butter in a thin stream, whisking constantly, until the mixture has the consistency of mayonnaise - stop adding butter as soon as this is achieved. Add the lemon juice and seasonings, then put aside and keep warm.
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Heat a small frying pan and brush with melted butter. Add just enough pancake batter to cover the base of the pan, then cook both sides until golden.
Place a piece of proscuitto and two asparagus spears on each pancake and roll up. Lightly butter a baking dish and lie the pancakes side by side, with a little space between each. Heat pancakes through in the oven for 10 minutes, then place two pancakes on each plate. Spoon over hollandaise and rest briefly under the grill until the hollandaise is lightly glazed. Yum.

Clevedon Village Farmers Market
Every Sunday 8:30am-12 noon, Clevedon Showgrounds, Monument Rd, Clevedon.

Visit our website at www.clevedonfarmersmarket.co.nz
To unsubscribe to this email click here and type 'unsubscribe' in the subject line