So here’s an interesting lad. Dan Pearson grew up in Northampton England, a town who’s culinary roots span back to the proper paleo’s, then the Romans, the Danish and of course those ever-present scrappy English, who refused to give over to a protein centric or pasta based cuisine. Notwithstanding the dark, rich history of the place, Dan could not wait to leave. Noting that the life of the cook was an itinerant one, he promptly got himself through catering school by the age of 17 and set off to other locales – looking for a better party.

Working in the kitchen came easily for Dan, who had a flare for diversity and a strange penchant for deep cleaning. The hustle and bustle also suited his energetic soul and he found himself working through various stations (chef de partie) until he landed a job as sous chef at London’s Michelin decorated Mandarin Oriental. It was here that Mr. Pearson shifted from cooking as getaway vehicle to a being a chef. One reason; the Oriental’s practice of partnering with Rosa Aplina in Switzerland provided Dan with both inspiration and exposure to an extraordinary breadth of recipes, ingredients and practices that would be brought to bear in his later entrepreneurship.

Working in London, Dan met his dual citizen wife Jo who hailed from New Zealand. The couple took a ‘vacation’ to New Zealand which was supposed to last seven weeks but is now eight years and counting – with not surprisingly – zero trips back to Northampton.  Most of us who live here totally understand why someone from the UK would want to reconsider the antipodes, but for Dan it was a complete release from the way “London would wind you up like a spring, then expend you”. A good time for some, for a while perhaps, but for Dan, God’s own was a God send. Until he started working in restaurants that is.

Eight years ago, New Zealand was not the culinary destination that it is today. In fact, moving from the vibrant experiences Dan had in London to the developing kitchen scene in Auckland was not great. Dan was in transition at the time as well so there were deeper motivations to be sorted. Children were had, parenting became a joyful priority shift, and Dan moved into contract work. With a growing family and an entrepreneurs heart he started to lose his love for the professional kitchen.

A few years on and working on contract in the Waikato, Dan was deep into the mess of a restaurant he was tasked to sort out. With the place in disarray, and a staff unwilling to listen to him, Dan locked himself in the dry store one day and took to one of his favourite habits – deep cleaning. The solitude of the pantry, surrounded by ingredients in need of sorting and love, Dan started pairing this fresh turmeric with that tarragon or this juniper berry with that pink peppercorn. His immediate goal was to create a rub that the most average of cooks could press into a bird and serve a delicious meal with, regardless of the larger condition of the restaurant.

Back home, Dan chatted with Jo about the possibility of taking this love of pairings and flavours seriously. Ultimately, he wanted to bring the best of his kitchen experiences into everyone else’s every day kitchen – all in the form of practical and delicious rubs. For instance, back in London while working with a chef from Rosa Alpina, Dan watched with wonder as the Swiss Italian created a rub with cacao, cassia, chilis and a few other ingredients pressed into a venison loin which transformed the meat. He knew that he could do the same for a number of meat or veg dishes and decided to take a crack at it.

Starting at the Pukekohe markets, Dan started selling a few rubs, which then went to the Hobsonville markets and on and on from there. In less than two years now (with 20 years of back story of course) Dan now has a range of beautifully packaged rubs for each meat type and of course for fish and veg, salads, you name it. He’s wisely moved from the hectic north once again and settled in Port Chalmers, Dunedin where he’ll be setting up shop to showcase the world of spices according to the ex-East Midlander – a smart lad who’s seen the world and wants to share the taste of it all. In the mean time, we’re pretty stoked that at Raeward Fresh, you can chat with our butchers who’d love to pair some great cuts with Dan’s Wild Fennel & Co rubs.

PS. I’ve had the pleasure of using Dan’s “Sheep’s Seasoning” (sumac, cumin & mustard among other things) on a lamb rack with beautiful results. The same for his “Chicken Seasonings” (mustard, onion and tarragon) in a tray of roast veg and sausages. Super easy and the added depth of flavours a treat!

Recipe tip: press a package of Wild Fennel Co.’s Sheep Seasonings into a boned leg of lamb and wrap with a decent grade of plastic wrap many times until completely sealed. The pop it in the oven overnight at 70 or 80˚C for around 12 hours. The next day, place it in the fridge until you want to serve it. Heat the oven to 200˚C and unwrap the lamb, placing it into a baking tray. Bake for around 45 minutes, glazing every now and then with your favourite BBQ sauce. This will form a glaze on top of the rub. The lamb is cooked perfectly pink inside while retaining all it’s juices. The rub and glaze give it the perfect finish. 

Why is it, one wonders, that on average, one in three steaks we buy will be chewy and the other two, well, not so much. From rump to sirloin, getting a tender cut of beef can be a bit of a lottery in New Zealand. Of course there are some cuts that are more tender than others, but even within these categories the quality of meat is hugely different from week to week. Actually, from cow to cow which means from farm to farm – the aggregate thereof being all thrown together into a large meat processing facility which has no rating for tenderness aside from general cuts. That’s why on any given supermarket shelf you will find a massive difference in the quality of steak as all rumps are not raised equally. One farmer may be taking amazing care of their cattle – producing great tender meat – while another may have had grass issues resulting in lower feed rates and tougher meat. Both farmers are getting paid by the pound regardless though so when the meat hits the market, it’s all mixed in together. As good a cook as you or I may be, we’re all taking a punt here.

As tends to happen though, when industries get a bit out of balance – in this case, with the growing aggregation of meat processors – there are often market correctors who see the opportunity to look differently at the entire chain, adding value and often returning to traditional ways of getting a particular farmer’s goods to the people who will appreciate them the most. For instance, I had a steak the other day produced by a particular farmer growing grass fed Wagyu in New Zealand. I could see through the packaging that the marbling was at least BMS6 or 7 on the Wagyu scale and when I got it home to cook it, it of course turned out perfectly. Super tender, lovely flavour and probably the best steak I’d had all year (at home). Looking closer at the company then (First Light), I could see that these guys have taken the problem mentioned above and turned it into an outstanding New Zealand solution aiming to bring a consistently great meats to home cooks and hospo crews alike. The really interesting thing to me about First Light though, is that while many Kiwi’s will head out into the world and bring what they’ve learned back home – where it usually stays put – First Light have taken the best of kiwi innovation (at least in the meat industry) and brought it back out to the big wide world. 

I learned this from Jason Ross, one of the three founders of First Light – a company that aims to take the best of NZ’s grass fed farm culture, it’s fresh water and outstanding agriculture and create the tastiest meat available for NZ and abroad. Looking through their web site, you immediately get the feel that these guys are a kind of huge extended family that honours not only the fantastic farmers of NZ, but of other nations, their histories and ongoing stories. Jason used to work in commodities in Australia and I think it’s this initial vantage point that allowed him and fellow partners Greg and Gerard to see the larger need in the world (back then, for leaner healthier meats like venison, and today, a grass fed quality cut of Wagyu). They formed a strong network of great farmers from Canterbury to Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture to Northern California who shared histories and breeds and paired this with a world class team of logistic, sales and marketing pros. The result is this big family of quality buffs who have taken on one of the biggest challenges in meat making history, namely, to create grass fed Wagyu that is even better than the original grain fed cow.

To appreciate how hard this is, you have to remember that the Japanese Wagyu breed has been fed on cow chocolate (grains) and beer for hundreds of years. While this may be compared to the force feeding of ducks to make foie gras, the result is an amazing fat marbling that creates a steak that literally melts in your mouth. The cost to both the cow and the consumer ultimately is not a good thing though and the lads at First Light wanted to put their kiwi ingenuity to work on making what they felt could be a NZ first – outstanding grass fed Wagyu. Same marbling, same buttery experience, but with healthier animals and healthier environmental and consumer outcomes. To do this, they worked with a Japanese farmer who had come from Miyazaki to Hawkes Bay to raise Wagyu and paired his experience with Kiwi farmers around the country. They developed a grass feeding regime including leafy crops of kale, chicory and other grasses consistently available to keep up the weight and fat ratios. They allowed their cows to mature at a healthy rate (over 3 years) with kiwi farmers who invested their talents in creating quality beef. After 10 years of research and hard work by an extended team of people, NZ Wagyu is now an outstanding reality. In fact First Light have already been exporting this stuff for a few years to the likes of Whole Foods in the US and other places around the world. 

As is often the case though with kiwi’s either appreciating and returning home with a great new idea, or coming up with one here – the culinary tall poppy issue arises. Do New Zealanders even want a perfect steak to slap on some rusted steel plate BBQ or will the budding home cook seek out an opportunity to have some friends over to baptise their Big Green Egg or Infrared grill with a proper Wagyu sirloin? Do we want to have something special, consistently, that we know carries with it centuries of craft and tradition, but made in Hawkes Bay or the Canterbury Plains with a New Zealand spin even if we’re not living in Ponsonby? Will we eat this kind of quality meat five times a week, at these price points? Probably not. Not every day. But that’s also part of the ethos of First Light, and I believe, of a growing body of kiwi’s who choose to have something extraordinary a couple of times a week because eating meat and three veg every day is not only boring, it’s unhealthy for everyone involved. I would completely love, however, to have a piece of First Light’s steak a few times a month. Maybe more with different cuts as they hit my local Raeward Fresh shelves. These guys are an amazing resource for a country getting caught up in aggregate food processing, heading down a similar road to other nations that learned the hard way and now have outfits like Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms (in the U.S.) to be their market correctors. The brilliant thing about First Light in this regard is that they are spreading these ideas to a national community of farmers who will not only bring us amazing new cuts of grass fed Wagyu but will continue to maintain a high standard of New Zealand farm practice while being paid directly for the quality they create. That’s worth every dollar in my book.

Apparently, Faine Alexander (the angel in question) has been working behind the scenes for quite a while now, gathering some of the most authentic and delicious Mexican ingredients in order to deliver them to a country who has seen the light. Her ability to bridge the distance between the best of Mexican ingredients and the curious foodies of NZ is extraordinary so I spent some time with her recently, trying to understand why and how she’s done it via her company – Tio Pablo. 

Faine grew up in Walnut Creek, California, a town in a state rich in Mexican culture and cuisine. She grew up pouring over gourmet Mexican cookbooks and loved their broad ranging recipes, food she could try out at any given strip mall in town where mom and pop shops would be serving some of the best Mexican foods around, recreating Oaxacan or Yucatan specialties. She later married a Mexican American who’s beloved uncle Paul (Pablo) would eventually become her Kiwi companies name sake. When the couple moved to NZ for work, Faine longed for a decent tortilla among other things so she decided to start making her own. She bought an old tortilla machine and started production for what would eventually hit the local markets and then grocery stores. The machine wasn’t great but Faine was convinced it was the way of the future (bringing some of Mexico’s food heritage to NZ) so she mortgaged the house and went to Pico Rivera in order to buy a tortilla maker (as you do) and started producing heaps! 

​​Along the way, Faine dove deeper and deeper with family and friends to discover what really makes for authentic Mexican cuisine. For instance, she found that there was a distinct Mexican Oregano which came from lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora family) and gave a rich flavour to salsas among other things. Also, the use of Amaranth, used by the Aztecs for centuries, was largely forgotten and was due for a comeback. As these lessons kept flowing, so did the number of products Faine and Tio Pablo introduced. As more great ingredients hit these shores, the Tio Pablo crew started making an impressive array of foods that you could simply break out for a killer snack (as I write, I’m munching on their amazing Totopitos- simply the best corn chips I’ve had in the country – dipped in Tio Pablo’s Salsa de Pepita) or add to proper breakfast of Heuvos Rancheros (using Tio Pablo’s proper corn tortillas and salsa verde), or, spice up your next fish taco lunch with their Mayan Gold spice mix. 

The thing Faine is doing so brilliantly here is providing deeply thought through foods which use solid, authentic ingredients our Mexican brothers (and their mothers) would smile upon. She’s doing the research and the hard work of getting the good stuff into the country, and, she’s making it available to the rest of us! Now, we’ve all seen Mexican food supplies growing like tomatillos on our store shelves. Kits and packs of taco shells (warning, you won’t find ‘taco shells’ in Mexico) with spice mixes, cans of black beans and even the odd dried chilies etc. These are okay as far as quality and flavour (mostly), but are a kind of disservice to authentic Mexican cuisine which is actually super varied, ancient and amazingly delicious when done right.  

Take for instance, the making of a mole , a staple in Mexican sauces. These rich, often dark sauces, are a bit of an art form in Mexico (check out Chef Enrique Olvera on Netflix’s Chef’s Table). They form the basis of many dishes or are added onto many more producing a kind of Mexican Umami. To achieve the well rounded flavour profiles, you HAVE to have the right chillies at the heart of your mole. Guess who has the best in the country? Yep, dried Guajillo chillis, Habanero if you dare, chilpotle of course, Arbol (one of my favourites), Morita… the list goes on. Tio Pablo has taken these ingredients so seriously that anyone in the country now has a shot at producing excellent Mexican mole or for that matter, the broader cuisine. I for one think this is quite a thing. Not just because I grew up in California and need my fix, well, maybe, but because one of the things New Zealanders shine at is starting with the best of what other countries produce and then to take it to a whole other level, like the fellas at Taco Medic down here in Queenstown who use Tio Pablo’s outstanding masa (now with blue corn, yea boyyy) in their own hand made fantastic tacos.  

This is what Faine and crew do at Tio Pablo, honouring their roots and bringing the best of Mexico and NZ together. Have a look at their impressive recipe list first and then head into the store to grab some of these ingredients, snacks and meals for yourself.

This one will get you started on your first Mole! http://tiopablo.co.nz/chicken-mole/

One of the things New Zealand does for people is to create a bit of room to grow. Some fresh air if you will. As relatively small as these two gorgeous islands are, they seem to create heaps of space for people to either build on their diverse past, or, to reinvent themselves. The results, especially in the world of food, becomes something as fresh as the land itself. This is truly the case with Line Hart and her light, airy and delicious Knækbrød (crackers, but not, but yeah). Line has found the space in NZ to reinvent a traditional Scandinavian food, taking it to new places in terms of flavour, texture and use. At Raeward Fresh, we like to think we’re creating a kind of daily farmers market where these products – representations of the place we live in – can be celebrated and shared with our communities and we’re stoked Line is one of those ‘farmers’.

Line (pronounced “lee-ner”) Hart grew up in Denmark where food was (and still kinda is) pretty straightforward. Until the weekend that is, when as Line says, people let their hair down (the long blond kind I imagine) and get baking. Line still remembers wonderful weekends in the kitchen with her grandmother which probably inspired her next move coming out of school, working in fine dining restaurants. During the daily menu conversations, Line was prepped on all the ingredients used, the pairing, and what customers would be experiencing. These connections went deep and would later form the basis of her own pairings in Aotearoa using local beers, harvested sea salts and herbs among other things.

​After an apple picking visit to NZ in her 20’s, which blew Line away, and then a longer stint in the UK, she settled back in NZ with her family and started making all the things she loved from back home but couldn’t find here (rye bread, marzipan…). During one visit from her mother, the two decided to make the traditional crisp breads from the old country. By old, I mean Scandinavians have been making these ‘hard breads’ for their long winters ever since 500 AD. Having lived in this fresh as country for a while though, Line naturally started to let her own hair down in the switching up of ingredients. To the befuddlement of her mother, Line took a more modern approach and made a seed based cracker to which she added – of all things un-Danish – cumin. Since living in NZ, Line has loved seeing how international ingredients find their way into foods here, the general cultural openness and resulting fusion in the culinary scene. These influences, combined with her own great sense of pairing has led to some stunning ideas.

To give you a better idea of how all this works in the making of a deceptively delicious item such as a Danish hard bread, Line has combined these old-world cracker making techniques (Line rolls all her Knækbrød by hand) with spent grain, for instance, from Hallertau’s #3 Copper Tart Red Ale to create an award winning product. As in, the Cuisine Artisan Awards 2017 Supreme Winner kind of product! Another great kiwi pairing is Line’s Rosemary Knækbrød with Hauraki sea salt, the product of a new collaboration with Greg Beattie who has worked for years in developing a commercial hand harvested sea salt flake from the Hauraki Gulf.

​To bring this all home though, I think it’s important to think about crackers themselves. Like white bread, Kiwi’s have always appreciated the basics in life, to which we add our whitebait – or like in the film Boy, butter on some days and crayfish on others! Same with crackers, we have all kinds of white crackers for which to put our stunning Akaroa salmon on, or home made rocket pesto and feta. But just like those crusty European sourdoughs which have finally made their way into our bread boxes, so too are European crackers – like those from Bonnie’s Oatcakes. Most of us though, have never had sweet brown cheeses or dill soaked Norwegian salmon on large dry rye knekkebrød. So there’s no real bench mark here. But if you for instance, take one of Line’s Danish Beer Crackers and place a thin slice of cured salmon on top, you will be entering the NZ of the 21st century where all good things come together. Same with her Cumin Crackerbread paired with feta and pesto – amazing. I promise you that the light, crips nutty flavour of the cracker itself will be such a delightful experience, that you won’t know what to do with that typical packet of white crackery stuff in the pantry. And maybe that’s one of the gifts of living in God’s Own, that we continually appreciate both the past and the future afresh each and every day.

If you’ve ever been to India and had the chance to stay in a friends home, where their mother or grandmother was in the kitchen, then you’ll know something about how years – even centuries – of tradition, skill and love go into the array of dishes being served. Even the smallest dish on the table, a chutney, would have layers of storied ingredients and techniques producing a deeply flavoured kiss to whatever it’s combined with. Back in NZ, you might pick up a jar of chutney from the supermarket hoping to find that same compliment to your rice dish or cheese toastie. What you’d typical be met with however is an overly sweet, gooey approximation of just one level of what you experienced in India, say with mango flavours or chili. Super disappointing. What’s needed is someone’s mother, grandmother, and their aunt to have placed all that skill and love into a jar full of the same complexity and beauty you tasted in Goa.

Oh wait!

Jennifer Viegas grew up between homes in Goa and Mombai enjoying the food her mother, aunt and grandmother prepared. The Portuguese history of the South (1500’s to 1960) paired with the Mughal influences from the North gave Jennifer a diverse and tasty palate to enjoy. Access to fresh shellfish, Portuguese spices like smoked paprika, piri piri (from the African coast), cinnamon and bay leaves, and, the fruit of the south were all part of a larger pantry to work with. A combination of Indian and Portuguese pickling techniques also allowed the family to store abundant crops of mango or aubergine which would later become family favourites as Jen then raised her own kids on this unique cuisine. After travelling to Doha and living there for a long while, Jen and her family moved to Christchurch for the boys education.

Back then, one would struggle to find ingredients in a New Zealand store that enabled you to make a proper mango chutney, let alone a delicious carfreal (a pungent herbed chicken dish). Today however, you can get coriander, haldi, jeera and tamarind but what’s still missing are those mothers, grandmothers and aunts putting it together because if their last name is Wattie, it ain’t gonna taste like Goan cuisine. So, after the boys had moved out Jen finally got to build the kitchen of her dreams to run cooking classes passing on the techniques of her family traditions.

As people enjoyed the rich complexity Jen was creating in the class, they asked if they could buy even more. This encouraged Jen to take some of her favourite Prawn Balchão and Mixed Veg chutney’s to the local Mount Pleasant Farmers Market where the developing Kiwi palate was ready to understand and enjoy what Jen grew up with. From there to Jen started selling to stores like Raeward Fresh and now we can get the benefit of her storied, rich history and that of Goa in a jar. Well, kinda, because of course there’s so much more to those places… you know what I mean.

Jen is now moving on to create spice blends, also passed down through the ages to give us a taste of a Goan Masala or a killer curry powder. All of which allow newbies like me to add a small touch of Jen;s familial history and depth to my own cooking. From all of Raeward Fresh, we say thanks to Jen’s and her entire family’s Cozinha (Kitchen)!

One of the coolest traits surrounding Kiwi ingenuity isn’t just the No.-8-wire-ability to fix or recreate something, but to do so in such a manner that it becomes a world-class solution. You can see this “couldn’t find it so I made it” mentality across the board from the brilliant Williams Warne mini brewery to the stunning America’s Cup racing yachts. And now, thanks to the minds and hearts of the Kiwi-American collaboration between Parnell native Anthony Burt and Kenya, Singapore, South Korea and Boston native Kevin Law-Smith. You can add the world’s best tonic waters right up there alongside Richard Pearce’s (flying machines) and Bruce McLaren’s (racing machines) gear. Hyperbole you say? I say you’ll have to try these tonics to see for yourself.

Perhaps the struggle to equate a tonic water with something as flash as a Formula One machine is that most tonics are boring as. Or, that they’re so much pop, fizz and sugar that they’re easily dismissed as inconsequential. This however would not have been the case upon their invention, when the jungles of Southeast Asia could kill a man via mosquito and quinine became an essential “tonic” or treatment against the disease. The invention that came next, namely, gin & tonic, became an essential way to cope with the bitterness of the cinchona tree bark from which quinine is derived, as well as coping with other life issues ever since. In fact, if you look closely at the original tonic accompanying those early gin mixes, you would find something quite extraordinary in both it’s history and affect.

In terms of kiwi invention, I think what Anthony and Kevin have recaptured here is the affect of gin and tonic. A lot of people have tried to create mixers that would blend well with an average gin, and have succeeded in making something equally average if not overly carbonated and sugared. What the boys from Auckland have managed instead, is to tap back into the original idea, recipes, ingredients and uniqueness of the historical G&T. How they’ve done this is really the backbone of their story.

As artisan gin’s started making a comeback in the last 10 years, Kevin and Anthony noted that there wan’t a proper tonic available which didn’t wipe out the distinct flavours – sometimes herbaceous, sometimes spirited – of these outstanding varieties. On noting the lack, Kevin was reminded that his great grandfather had a recipe dating back to Kenya circa 1903 which described the making of the tonic of his day. This core recipe became the basis of trial and error until the fellas settled on two heirloom quinine sources in Asia, artesian water from Nelson and a few other authentic ingredients to make up the range of tonics they perfected. The other aspect of their invention is a nod to the original by calling the company East Imperial, an homage to both the origin of the drink’s ingredients and a reminder that the word imperial, back in the day, referred to something exceptional, or the best you could find. What they’ve managed, I think, is a striking combination of both an exceptional – even imperial – product and a brand / communication which could not have been displayed in a better fashion. A reminder of something beautiful, almost forgotten, restored for the rest of us.

These two facts have not been lost on the bartenders of the world who by nature are nomadic and tend to share their secrets with the top five or six establishments they may work at around the show over a two to three year period. As a result, this little Kiwi company touting a historic comeback is now in over 32 countries and being poured at some of the worlds finest establishments from the iconic 28 Hong Kong Street in Singapore to the ancient Savoy in London. Places where the subtle juniper of Tanqueray or the botanicals of even our local Broken Heart Gin want to shine through, being well supported by a lightly carbonated, beautifully crafted tonic. East Imperial have not stopped at the first gate however and have gone on to create a line of tonics that are fabulous in a range of drinks. Having some friends over this weekend (South by 42below and Bombay Saphire from across the world) along with a few people to share, we took the range for a spin and were so delightfully surprised at the restraint, subtle invention and sometimes gobsmackingly bright (that would be the grapefruit tonic) that we reigned down praise on each other for our good taste in both gin and mixer, and of course, ultimately each other. We tip our hats to these guys, their wives, their friends and who have all joined in the bringing back of something special in the world, something almost lost to the habits of large manufacturers and thus the habits formed in us. Here’s to the reforming of our taste buds and of our celebrations.

In my experience, the perfect salted caramel chocolate must have three things going for it. The chocolate has to be dark, perfectly smooth and thick enough to balance the caramel. The caramel should also be a bit darker – in the direction of an Argentinian dulce de leche – and not too chewy. Finally, if it’s a salted caramel, the salt should be significant enough in quantity to stand on it’s own alongside the other two strong flavors. Typically, most companies get one or two of these things right. Tanja Schwindt of Wanaka’s The Chocolate Workshop nails all three of these things with a kind of beautiful gusto – like a person who isn’t afraid of taking some standard fare and pushing it right out to it’s own limits. I love that.

I also love how Tanja is reimagining other classics like her dark or milk chocolate peanut butter cups while taking entirely new directions with, for instance, pairing traditional Japanese ingredients like Sake or Wasabi in the creation of specialized chocolate bento boxes. Whoa! Who does that? This girl must have grown up with French patesserier parents living in a foodie ashram somewhere up near Shangri La right? Nope. Tanja grew up in Mannheim Germany, which, while not quite being the Detroit of Europe, is not really known for it’s culinary history. So how does this add up, I had to ask.

Tanja tells me that Mannheim did indeed have a variety of different foods and cultures but that wasn’t her inspiration. She did live close enough to France to be influenced by patisserie culture there as well but it was actually during her degree in Hotel Management in Germany where she took a pastry course that went deep into her psyche, something that would emerge years later. She continued working for a hotel chain until the feeling of being suffocated in a crowded city became too much and she took a job offer from a friend in Wanaka. Arriving in NZ, even while managing a back packers and later working in food services, Tanja loved the sense of open space, open minds and the general positivity of the region.

As Tanja returned to being her self again, the idea of making chocolate reemerged. She started at home, making treats for the local market which went so well that she decided to form The Chocolate Workshop in 2012. In 2014 Tanja bought the Wanaka Chocolates business as well. The purity of her ingredients, flavours and pairings had always been a strength of Tanja’s and she continued to push those envelopes until she grew from the markets right through to our shelves at Raeward Fresh. But this is only the beginning, or new beginnings for Tanja.

As we’ve seen with so many of our wonderfully creative producers, the melding of other cultures and histories with the spirit and environment of New Zealand amplifies their ideas and products, upping everyones food game. For instance, when Tanja made her bento box of chocolates, she collaborated with David Joll (of Zenkuro Sake, the only Kiwi brewing Sake in NZ) of Queenstown to create this unique pairing of cultures. It’s this place, and these people of different origins and experiences that makes the kinds of products at Raeward Fresh, the market stalls around the country and even the shelves of stores around the world shine with a kind of foodie wonder – where you pick up that box of salted caramel chocolates and just have to say “Wow”!

At 32 years old, Eliott Menzies and his Altitude beers are a bit of surprise. The man has an inordinate amount of brewing knowledge for a guy his age and his beers have an extraordinary depth of flavour and a refreshing balance for a craft startup of only three years running. Altitude’s presentation has all the markings of coming from a huge ad agency (nope, just a cool friend of his, Lisa Te-Awhitu) and you can find these hefty bottles in some of the best wine and beer bars in the country. On top of all this, Altitude Brewing has been wining awards over the last two years now, competing against more established breweries showing what it’s really made of. Which again, I find surprising coming from this bearded good natured young fellow who could just as easily be your local barista or graphic designer. After a pallet popping beer tasting Eliott deftly delivered at Kinloch Lodge a few weeks ago, I decided to follow him up and get the back story behind these amazing brews.

Eliott grew up around Nelson, mostly on land. His parents moved around a bit and decided at one point to live on a boat sailing around the Marlborough Sounds. So for two and a half years Eliott and his two younger brothers lived at sea. Being home schooled before and during this time (Eliott’s mum is a teacher), he learned to make stuff as part of his curriculum and life on the boat. One of the things he made for instance, was a ginger beer for a local home brew competition held at The Bay of Many Coves. There was of course, a few exploding bottles along the way but Eliott eventually mastered the brew, getting feedback from the local kids, all quaffing their ginger beer and sharing tasting notes in a hut on the beach. This explains much of Eliott’s early education.

From the sunny north (of the South Island) the Menzies moved to the snowy south (of Queenstown) where Eliott went to high school, continuing his appreciation for local brews with memories of great beers being served to his family at McNeill’s Brewery (now Sasso), a classic 1882 stone residence built by the Scottish James McNeill which was converted to a local brewery in the 1970s. After high school and before Uni Eliott went to Scotland where his craft beer experience went much deeper, working at the Clachaig Inn where they had 12 hand pumps of local beers on offer. One of the local breweries in the region, Atlas, gave Eliott a job a few days a month where he was able to get into the belly of the beast and see the entire old-world process, albeit mostly from the vantage point of digging out tanks and washing down floors. A home schooler at heart though, Eliott took this as a learning opportunity and soaked up as much as he could.

Returning to NZ for Uni in Wellington in 2002, Eliott started making his own beer recipes (and a few wines) which fermented away in the flat’s hot water cupboard. Spurred on by the odd craft beer experience – like his first Tuatara at Bar Bodega – Eliott saw the fledgling beginnings of the craft beer movement in this country, using kiwi grown hops and other local ingredients creating unique new flavours or re-inventing the classics. The craft beer scene in NZ really didn’t get going till around 2006 so Eliott and a few others around the country were just starting to brew these ideas within themselves, each following a different path with different backgrounds. For Eliott, this meant more time overseas in Colorado and the UK, then back to Queenstown running his own small business and working in various parts of the wine industry. In 2009 however, with recipes still fermenting in his brain, Eliott decided to make brewing his “full-time hobby”, taking a true amateurs approach to brewing where a love for the craft and a passion for quality drive the process.

The culmination of Eliott’s journey came in 2013 where he decided to lock himself away for six months in a small batch on the Kaikoura Coast perfecting an IPA recipe. Eliott wanted to strike the balance between a full flavoured brew and a medium alcohol content. Most IPA’s depend on higher malt contents for flavour balance but this pushes the alcohol level up too. For some this isn’t a problem, but for Eliott, the challenge was to create a beer you fully enjoyed alongside a great meal, or on it’s own after a big day on the hill – not getting sloshed, but instead soaking up flavour and experience. He wanted to mirror the best of beers he’s had around the world, but making it distinctly kiwi, hops and all. The result, The Mischievous Kea formed from locally grown Pacific Jade, Pacifica, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin hops and a range of malts that Eliott kept his eye on to reach that perfect balance he knew he wanted to share. And share he did, at an opening at Atlas bar in Queenstown, where they couldn’t get enough kegs to keep up and ordering more of whatever Eliott could come up with.

Applying the same passion for old-world craft and classic flavours, Eliott and Altitude came up with another five brews. Each one matching the makers heart for depth, quality, balance and flavour. I know this personally from my own experience but I decided to take them all to a local dinner party (German Food: Rosti, Sauerbraten and red cabbage) where some foodie friends and I could put these beers to work with an extensive meal. This is what we came up with:

Altitude Pale Ale: aka The Posturing Professional:

with Pepato, White castelli and vintage cheddar, Apples

Nose effect: citrus, pine, cheddar
Rich, malty down the throat with food. Super smooth with the pepato. 
A little smokey with a citrus finish

Oak flavours with the castelli

Lager: aka The Goldpanners Profit:

Smells of apple & honey, caramel. Crisp and dry in the mouth. Light enough to whisk down the throat when really thristy. With this food though oaty with the cheese and hummus and bright with the castelli.
With the Rosti it turns hearty and quenching

I.P.A.: aka The Mischievous Kea

A beautiful rounded flavour with the overall meal, works on all levels, even with the dark chocolate Anzac pie!

Stout: aka The Moonlight Track:

Forgot to pick one up, got two Kea’s instead. Doh!

Hefe: aka The Persistent High

With the sauerbraten: smells of ripe wheat as it should and tastes light on it’s feet (helles as apposed to dunkles) and bright. Almost floral, banana with an effervescent mouth feel. With red cabbage it gains some legs and warmth. Brilliant! Our favorite of the night.

In congratulating him on beers this well made, Eliott is quick to remind me how grateful he is to the many people that he’s learned from and who’ve supported him along the way including Davie McKenzie and the staff at Atlas, the local Queenstown community, and more recently, Eddie Gapper, Eliott’s new business partner. As I said earlier, these brews are now showing up at some of the best wine and beer establishments in the country, not because they’re craft and therefore hip, but because they’re outstanding in flavour and experience. Especially the stout and hefe in my experience. Not over the top new flavours for the sake of being beer candy, but because Eliott has mastered, in his young life, the art of building on top of a great beer platform and made them distinctly South Island alpine in magical ways. This is exactly why we stock these beers at Raeward Fresh – celebrating the true locality and provenance of makers like Eliott who know who they are and where they came from.

The human tongue can detect fine particles down to about 20 microns. That’s 20 millionths of a meter, or very very fine. Which is why certain chocolates for instance, taste grainy whilst others are super smooth. Typically, a manufacturer more interested in bulk sales will not conch & grind the cacao beans down to a fine size and not bother getting the sugar content or grain size down as well – resulting in a sandy tasting overly sweet chocolate where you can’t really taste the actual cacao itself. Think poorly made espresso – where you get the idea that coffee – or chocolate in this case – is involved, but you haven’t really experienced the bean itself. Those though who are very interested in sharing the complex and dynamic flavours of chocolate take extreme care to reduce their ground cacao beans to around 12 microns, and do the same with whatever sugars’ added. The results, along with a host of other crafty processes, will release a delightful combination of flavours and experiences, especially highlighting the cacao’s provenance and even it’s terroir.

Now, there aren’t heaps of people in NZ making chocolate like this. We’ve interviewed a couple in this blog, and more and more people are having a go around the world. But I recently came across an ex-fisherman from Nelson who for some compelling twists of fate and adventure, completely gets this whole fine-micron-craft-production-cacao-provenance deal. His name is Karl Hogarth and he makes an outstanding bean to bar range of chocolates. To introduce them to you, I’ll start off with what I tasted in each brilliantly produced and packaged bar:
• Akesson Estate, Trinitario – Madagascar: oak, prune, sour cherry, pinot noir, caramel
• Conacado, Trinitario – Dominican Republic: malt, raison, toffee, fresh apricot
• Gran Blanco, Criollo cacao beans – Peru: dried nectarine, raw almond, coffee, yogurt
• Carenero Superior, Trinitario cacao – Venezuela: rich cacao, tobacco, walnut, chestnut, lemon

It amazes me to not only find a world class chocolate like this in little ole NZ, but that it came from a man of the sea. If you take great wine for instance, it’s typically produced by the net knowledge of generations of vintners who refine their skills over the land and flora until they nail it, weather permitting. So how is it that a fisherman from the sunny northern south can turn his hand to the land, find outstanding cacao around the world and alchemy it into smooth as silk chocolate like this? I had to ask.

Karl grew up by the sea in Nelson where having left school at 15, took to fishing vessels where he spent the next 20 years catching Orange Roughy etc. As regards food, Karl tells me his mum was a stellar cook and he would often call on her for recipes to help him feed the lads when it was his turn in the galley. Like most kiwi’s Karl also grew up with an appreciation for honest, quality ingredients with which to work with both at sea and on the land. After this long stint fishing, Karl went back to uni to study (marketing and commercial law) and then went on his OE to South and Central America. It was there in Guatemala that Karl tasted chocolate like he’d never before. It was a fudge-like mixture of panela and cacao, dark and amazing, and it made Karl think about how different chocolate, made well, could actually be. The other outstanding experience in South America was meeting his wife in Argentina where the couple decided to live for a while before returning to NZ.

Once Karl returned to Nelson, his education in chocolate began in earnest. He studied techniques from around the world and learned that not only do you not need a huge factory (think; Willy Wonka) to produce a great bar, but that the more focused and refined you are in your process, the more the bean shines through. Of course, there were the typical No. 8 Wire approaches to production, like when Karl would for instance, start his day out back in a dressing gown and swimming goggles – hairdryer and large metal bowl in hand – winnowing the freshly roasted cacao nibs in the Nelson breeze while la esposa complained of the constant chocolate smells indoors. Undeterred (but a kind husband nevertheless) Karl continued on with the many iterations of machines for production, or designs to nail the moulds and packaging… all of which brought him closer and closer to re-producing that amazing experience in Guatemala, where you could actually taste how special the cacao bean really was.