Now that winter is here, or supposed to be in Otago, I’m on the lookout for ingredients that are going to spike my ice creams with fresh fruitiness or flavour my lattes with intrigue or top my chocolate cakes with panache or garnish my huevos rancheros with roasted and fresh herbs… Problem is, it’s winter – or supposed to be – and I can’t get fresh blueberries, raspberries, black doris plums or kaffir leaves for these dishes. Not to worry says my Raeward Fresh pal Nathan at the store in Queenstown, Fresh As has got me sorted. These guys produce freeze dried produce that seals in not only the freshness and nutrition of the fruits and herbs they sell, but a fantastic twist to the original product that makes my ice cream for instance, a whimsical magical thing. I’ll explain.

Tommy Roff is a perfectionist who has been in the produce business for over 25 years. In his experience, when winter came around chefs and home cooks alike wanted access to fresh herbs and fruits but struggled to find them. Tommy decided then to freeze dry certain foods that would tap into the imagination of chefs developing new cuisines flourishing around the world (Fresh As now sells to chefs and retails stores in seven countries). Freeze drying food is a process that combines super cold temps and vacuum technology. It freezes the food, however instead of producing liquid the moisture turns to ice and is then vacuumed from the food leaving a distinct crispy texture. This means the Fresh As dried blueberries I use for my sweetened condensed milk ice cream reconstitute just a bit in the process of making the ice cream (see recipe below) but also maintain a chewy gooeyness that makes the ice cream amazing! Same is true for my Black Doris latte using Tommy’s plum powder in the steamed milk – AMAZING!

Tommy and the crew at Fresh As have created heaps of great recipes which you can see on their site but I wanted to highlight a few of my own creations, made with Fresh As goodness, to encourage you along the road of freeze dried discoveries in your own kitchen. I started out by getting a huge range of Fresh As gear, from herbs (kaffir and sage powder to tarragon and thyme) and spices, to some fruit powders (mango and black doris for instance) and then dried fruits (like lychee, blueberry, strawberries, whole cherries and plum slices) and started experimenting. Of course, the fruits are fantastic just popping them in your mouth (they melt revealing all their original freshness), but I’ve tried a few other recipes I’ll pass on here.

This recipe is a staple at my place which allows you to make any kind of ice cream you want without the fuss of an ice cream maker or the constance stir, freeze, stir… process. And now with Fresh As dried fruits, it’s all gone up a few notches!

Ingredients:

250 ml fresh cream (or Lewis Road thickened cream if you want to go hard)

200 ml sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla paste or essence

half a pack of Fresh As freeze dried blueberries

Simple As method:

whip the cream until thick

whip in the condensed milk and vanilla

stir in the blueberries

That’s it folks. Put it in the freezer and 12 hours later you have the most amazing ice cream. The texture is smooth and perfect and the blueberries become a chewy candy like thing which makes the whole affair fantastic. I’ve added some pomegranate syrup over the top in the pic below just to add a little kick to the dessert.

Fresh As Black Doris Latte

In the U.S. you’ll often find flavored latte’s on offer at interesting cafes. I’ve had Hawaiian Black Sea Salt Latte’s, Lavender Latte’s and of course, dark chocolate and chili… so when I saw the Black Doris plum powder from Fresh As, I thought the rich flavour would go well with a long black straight up or steamed in the latte milk. Both worked a treat. Have a go for your self and see what you think.

Fresh As Mandarin Chocolate Cake

We’ve been working on an extension at home and decided to treat the builders to this amazing coffee cake treat. Smiles all around especially with the candy crunch of the punchy mandarin slices.
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Ingredients:

Dry:

1 & 1/2 cups flour 

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 cup coconut sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

Wet

1 & 3/4 cups buttermilk

2 generous tablespoons rice bran oil

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp Blue Frog Zesty Orange syrup 

Icing:

100 ml fresh cream

100 grams chopped dark chocolate 

a pack of Fresh As Mandarin slices

Method:

Preheat your oven 160˚ C and line a lot tin with baking paper.

Mix all the dry ingredients well and then add the wet ingredients one by one stirring with a wooden spoon until well combined.

Pour into the lined loaf tin and back at 160˚ for 40 minutes or until your knife come out clean from poking into the middle of the cake. Allow 1 hour to cool

For the icing, finely chop the 100 grams of dark chocolate and set in a glass bowl. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring the cream to a boil and pour over the chocolate. Allow it to sit for 4 minutes and then stir to create the ganache. Allow to cool for another 10 minutes stirring occasionally and then pour over the cake. 

Add scrunched up bits of the mandarin to the top of the iced cake and then artfully place the rest of the whole pieces. Serve warm with coffee. Yum!

I’ve been adding the coriander power to my quesadillas (see below), sage to my split pea and ham hock soups, kaffir to my salad dressings, and the list goes on. Fresh As herbs and spices really do take the flavour up a notch and the fruits have got me thinking anew about many of my old recipes. Have a go for your self at a Raeward Fresh near you and see what you can create.

I opened my first bottle of Abel Methode Cider today, over lunch, with quesadillas of all things. I wanted something salty and rich to pair alongside the Nelson made cider to see how it would hold up with my memories in London and the heady pot pie & cider pub meals I’ve had. The elegant bottle delivered an effervescent stream of gold into my even golder hospice shop tumbler. You know the ones, made in the ’70s of all shapes and sizes… The champaign-like bubbles I was delighted to see are the result of the ‘methode traditionelle’ or ‘methode champenoise’ style where the maker prepares the cider (lovingly and painstakingly) in the bottle itself under high pressure mixing in the carbon dioxide most fermentation process allow to escape. When done right, this ‘methode’ allows the yeast and bubbles to remain just long enough to both properly flavour and sex up the cider giving it that very pleasing pour.

On first taste and without a bite to eat just yet, I found the cider dry, punchy and complex – none of which are some of my favourite things. I appreciate that a great cider is neither candy-sweet nor bursting with “raspberry overtones”, but on their own I find a proper cider to be too much work. After a couple of bites of the hard cheddar & mince chutney quesadilla however the Abel completely came into it’s own. The pear and apple mix of the cider’s flavours caught ahold of the tart saltiness of the cheese and the deeper sweet notes in the chutney and the dance began. Over the course of the meal, I found the cider both mellowed in contrast to the food but kept holding it’s own in terms of delivering the compliments. The bubbles rocked on throughout the lunch.

Making this kind of cider is no cake walk. Mark and Sophie McGill have mastered a very old and very complex technique here. The French sounding name ‘methode’ actually harks back to a traditional English method of tightly bottling ciders with their heavier coal-fired glass making techniques which the French adopted some time later and used for their champagnes. Having both grown up with and worked in the wine industry, the McGills learned about these techniques first hand. Sophie grew up in West Auckland and then moved to Marlborough with her dad working the vineyards there while Mark grew up in the Wairarapa with his dad working the grapes as well. Sophie studied psychology to get away from it all and spent time in Melbourne working in hospitality. Mark was in the first batch of students at Lincoln University’s wine making program and went on an OE working vintages in the U.S., Australia and NZ. He also ended up in Melbourne where the two got married and started a family.

Comparing both life notes and tasting notes – mostly bad ones – of the ciders available to them at the time, the two decided to put their business nous (both had great small business bosses they learned heaps from) to work making a truly great product. Mark had seen how the traditional wine making process could be applied to cider and decided to buck the rather average cider trends and put some history to work. The two moved to Nelson where they could source some outstanding heritage apple and pear varieties in the Upper Moutere and set up shop.

I’m not sure what it is that inspires two kiwi’s like these, who come from such a relatively young country with very little history in these methods, to so quickly produce a traditionelle cider that can hold up to any in the world. Maybe it’s that down to earth upbringing that makes sense of leaving apples to ripen on the tree giving them just the right brix reading, or crushing the whole fruit and then letting the heavy glass bottle do the magical part. Maybe it’s their passion for the product itself and their heritage coming through that draws out the very best of NZ fruits. Whatever it is, we’re stoked at Raeward Fresh that we get to have their elegant results on our shelves, celebrating their ingenuity and their love of good things. Cheers Mark & Sophie!

The other night I held a dinner party where we took a diverse range of fresh lettuces and edible flowers from the garden, washed them, kept the roots on and set them on the table. My guests loved trying the various chicory, spinach, and beetroot leaves for instance, paired with purple viola’s, blue corn flowers, orange calendulas and pink chives buds. But the stars of the ‘build-your-own-salad-sampler’ were the dressings. Saffron and orange vinaigrette complimenting the beetroot leaves, smoked chili vinaigrette punching up the spinach and a beautifully smooth blue cheese dressing toning down the chicory all made the evening super special. To the surprise of my guests, the dressings were store bought – but I couldn’t have done better myself, garden and all. 

This is thanks to Genevieve Knights, who has somehow managed to create professional kitchen fresh dressings (and other products) and made them available at my local Raeward Fresh. I know that sounds a bit corny, or marketing speak, but trust me, this stuff is outstanding for a number of reasons. First reason; Genevieve is a qualified chef with an amazing resume, including working at The French Café where she learned how to create world class meat and fish pates, parfait’s and mousse. Secondly, knowing that she wanted to be a chef since the age of 13, she has obsessed on, studied and experimented with food for over two decades in both the fusion scene, and the in the classics. Finally, Genevieve has had an intense focus on using and preserving the freshest of ingredients in her kitchen, insuring it arrives in the exact same state in mine. This is no easy task, especially when it comes to dressings and meat parfaits, all preservative free. You really have to taste this to know what I’m talking about. The zing in these dressings for instance, due in part to the fabulous flavours she chooses, comes mostly though from her unmatched skill as a chef to keep the fresh taste of ingredients in tact on the fridge shelf. 

Having worked in professional kitchens for years, for next to no pay, getting yelled at, learning the hard way, Genevieve decided to shift gears and focus on recipe and food writing / photography. Many well received articles, a few cookbooks and some great catering gigs later, she decided to put some of those tried and true recipes to good use at her local La Cigale French Market in Parnell. The rich, smooth texture of her duck liver parfait gained such a following that she decided to go full time and extend her range:

• Free range Chicken Liver Parfait (either peppered, original or truffled)

• Open barn raised Duck Liver Parfait (in either orange, original or Peaking spiced)

• Seafood Mousse (original prawn, original scallop or Mahurangi oyster)

• Classic French Vinaigrette

• Saffron & Orange Vinaigrette

• Classic Caesar Dressing

• Blue Cheese Dressing

• Smoked Chili Vinaigrette

• Sesame & Soy Vinaigrette

Each one of these products has required all of Genevieve’s chef skills to bring to market. Working alongside Massey University to maintain flavour, quality and a no preservative approach, the seafood mousse alone took over a year to perfect.  I love the her commitment for this kind of kitchen to kitchen delivery. So has the NZ Food awards who have acknowledged Genevieve’s same skills.

My recommendation; bake some of your own bread or oatcakes, grab some veg from the garden and lay it all out for your friends and neighbors with a good sampling of Genevieve’s parfaits and dressings. Have people specifically pair different flavours and see how you can take your best and Genevieve’s best to create a good time for all.

Lucy Bennetto is a curious soul. “Why” she wonders for instance, “are people so discerning when if comes to crafted beer or coffee, but when it comes to drinking chocolate, they’ll accept a crappy overly sugared drink?”. A good question to which Lucy has worked hard to answer because as is typical with these things, heaps of sugar usually takes the place of a well thought through crafted alternative. What Lucy wanted to do was make something outstanding, both in the process of being able to make your own hot chocolate, and experiencing it from the first sip to the last. To this end, she has developed the sublime Bennetto 70% cacao drinking / eating chocolate. And I’m here to say, it’s fabulous. 

Lucy’s curiosity has led her on a long journey of discovering the science behind various foods and drinks as well as the entire process of supply chains – from sourcing ingredients to final delivery – and all the sustainability and responsibility issues involved. Haven’t made her own cheese, wine and many other things, she discovered the rich qualities of chocolate and decided to figure out how to fill this gaping whole in the drinking chocolate arena. Eventually, she chose fair trade Peruvian cacao and started working with various companies both in Peru and in NZ to develop her flavours, processes and packaging so that the entire product was a beautiful thing relationally, environmentally and in every other way.

Once she had the chocolate discovery well under way, she wanted to figure out how to deliver the final experience to friends and future customers. The penny dropped while Lucy was in Dubai experiencing a lovely cup of tea, set out in ornate style with biscuits and loveliness all around. This she thought, is the kind of experience Bennetto’s drinking chocolate could deliver. She hired the talented Auckland watercolour artist Henrietta Harris to do her product art, using Peruvian birds representing the chocolates source, and Food South in Christchurch to create the compostible foil wrap and packaging. Then she perfected the flavour profiles that she thought would finish the experience. An experience to Lucy, which would entail the lucky person unwrapping a beautiful package, dropping one, or a few pieced of say orange, cardamom & chill chocolate into a cup of steamed milk, thoughtfully stirring it in and sipping these rich punchy flavours into their soul on a winters afternoon. 

Or a summers day after a picnic where you just go without the milk and nibble the chocolate like you would with any other dark chocolate organic goodness. Bennetto’s chocolate works so well both ways because Lucy and Co. have figured out how to adjust just the right levels of alkaline in the chocolate to have the perfect mouth feel as a drink, or straight up. What I really like about this personally, is that either as a drink or straight up, Lucy’s flavours are fantastic. The original dark chocolate has a lovely creamy taste and feel and her orange, cardamom and chilli has a real kick as well as great back flavours. I think if you’re going to use an ingredient like chill you need to go hard or go home. Lucy doesn’t overdo it with ingredeints but she’s not afraid of reflecting the changing kiwi palate, a nation of travelers experiencing strong tastes around the world.

Lucy’s commitment to fair trade, 100% organic and strong relationships both here and abroad is also matched by her focus on creating new flavours and products with that same curiosity and discipline. Keep your eye out for new things coming soon from Bennetto and next time you’re at Raeward Fresh, have a try of this extraordinary drinking / eating chocolate bar. And for tips on creating your own chocolate experience with Bennetto’s, click here to check out her tips

Karen Staples grew up in Auckland amongst a large family of foodies. As a child, she loved hanging around the kitchen reading cookbooks and experimenting with baking recipes which she trialled on her three bothers. Eventually she became the go-to person in the fam when it came to birthday cakes, or any event requiring something special from the kitchen. Some years later, she became the go-to person for people at her local farmers market for decadent Christmas cakes with a modern twist – which then developed into a seasonal business for corporate clients who also wanted festive home made goodies. Over time Karen developed a reputation for outstanding cakes and cookies even though it was a side project for her to raise some extra cash during the holidays. When a friend asked her to produce a breakfast cereal for their new retail store, Karen combined the same playful experimentation with recipes with top shelf ingredients to produce what would later become an award winning market leader in premium granolas. It seems to be her way with things.

By now, you’ve probably seen pure delish products at Raeward Fresh and other stores around the country. Over the last 10 years Karen and team have been cooking up all kinds of special hand made cereals, bars bites and slabs (my favourite being the ginger and walnut slab, extremely moorish), and of course, festive treats which have become known for being as dense in nutrition as they are in flavour and satisfaction. Originally though, I thought they were a bit out of my price bracket until I had a go and brought some home. Reading through the ingredients it’s not hard to see why the cost is there, or reading through pure delish’ web site to see how everything remains hand made and produced which such a high level of quality. But at the end of the day it comes down to flavour, satisfaction and sustenance.

In terms of flavour, pure delish products seem to me to have something of Karen’s original Christmas cake vibe to them. They’re dark and rich and packed with heaps of different textures and tastes that come together super well. As such they’re really satisfying and you don’t need heaps to feel like your breakfast is complete, or an elevenses snack is enough to get through to lunch. The dense nature pure delish’s cereals bar and bites (usually at least 60% nuts seeds and fruit) makes them rich and wonderful. In talking with Karen about her products, I noticed she’s keen on good health for her family and of course her products. It’s apparent in her choice of the best possible ingredients, paleo mixes and her own health choices, but to Karen pure delish seems to be all about creating foods that celebrate the best life has to offer while doing it for and alongside family/community. She’s still baking for the whānau.

The last thing I noticed about pure delish is that their foods are true sustenance. When you’ve had some serious breakfast cereal or snacks which actually cover most of the nutritional ground your body needs you can feel that both during and after the meal. This kind of food is very much worth the cost per gram especially if you eat reasonable amounts and spread out a bag of granola say, over a week or so.

Marie grew up in Lyon, France and knew very early on in life that she wanted to be a chef. So early in fact that she left school at the age of 14 and went through a rigorous French culinary education which lasted for six years. After focusing on chocolates and patisserie in Europe she went on to work with the Ritz Carlton hotel in their kitchens in Los Angeles, Fukuoka, Cape Town, Windhook, Lyon, Budapest, Prague, Kiev and New York. This international experience also led Marie to work in Australia and eventually in NZ at the Intercontinental in Wellington where she fell in love with the kiwi way of life in what was to her, an accessible and family oriented city. Her and her husband settled down, had children, founded and ran La Patisserie in the windy city and when baby No. 3 was conceived, they decided to get Marie out of the kitchen and allow her some space to focus on the children. 

Along side of the explorer / discoverer side of Marie is the quality focused chef that she is. Having gone around the region sourcing the best Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario cacao beans she could find, she began the deft process of blending at the Barry Callebaut factory in Brazil and processing these beans in combinations that drew out a particular depth of dark chocolate flavour, rounded with just the right level of sweetness which meant sourcing a wider range of beans from Indonesia. This is one of the things your mouth will immediately tell you about Wildness Chocolate. She completely nails the smooth mouth feel, the rich dark chocolate experience without being too dark (there is such a thing) and a surprising fruity finish with the added cupuaçu. 

As a typical British boy, Stewart Franklin loved his ‘crisps’. He even sold them as a kid growing up in the UK. As a young man, however, his not-so-typical side emerged and he travelled to New Zealand, landing in sunny Nelson. Having worked in the crisps industry in the UK, Stewart wondered why NZ ‘chips’ were so average when the country possessed some of the world’s finest potatoes? In 2007, he decided to tackle the disparity head on and adventured back out into the big wide world, sampling other crisps and learning all of the various ways one could make a better potato chip / crisp. He settled on the idea of using a kettle and brought one back with him to make proper crisps. Thus was born the namesake company we love, “Proper Crisps”.

Proper Crisps set up in a shed near Upper Moutere making crisps using the Agria potato Stewart chose from the Temuka area of Canterbury. He found the texture, density, colour and flavour of this particular cultivar the best he’d ever experienced. Next, Stewart developed just the right technique for making a proper crisp which he identified as having the perfect thickness, cooking the potatoes for just the right time and, of course, attaining the right degree of saltiness. For the salty part, Stewart chose the sea salt from Lake Grassmere in the Marlborough Sound. All these components came together and Stewart was pleased, creating what to him seemed the best chip he could make.

People visiting the Nelson Farmers Market agreed and bought up Stewart’s crisps – as did other local markets and, eventually, stores around the South Island, including the Mediterranean Market in Queenstown before it became part of the Raeward Fresh team. Stewart increased production but kept his standards in place. Things hummed along nicely and in 2010 he sold the business to Ed & Mina Smith. The Smith’s were on holiday at the time and curious about real estate in the area. They came across a bag of Proper Crisps in Golden Bay and fell in love with the product… and wanted to buy the business!

Ed and Mina were tired of overly processed food and loved the idea of keeping Proper Crisps 100% natural, which meant hand cutting each crisp, hand stirring every batch, hand sorting and hand seasoning – right down to placing the person’s name on the bag who cut, stirred, sorted and seasoned those particular crisps for you! They were also exited about the possibility of building on Stewart’s winning tradition, using international influences paired with local ingredients, and extending Proper Crisps flavour offerings. This began with the creation of a Rosemary and Thyme crisp, the idea for which originated from Mina’s Grandmother’s roasted rosemary and thyme potatoes back in France. Next came the Smoked Paprika crisps, a flavour combination born of the couples’ Californian influences meeting the Kiwi BBQ vibe.

After establishing these new crisp varieties, the couple went further afield to look for other flavours and veggies to create into crisps. Ed was no newcomer to expansion, as he had already established a large baking company in the US (Ne-Mo’s) which had a reputation for delivering high quantities of quality baked goods all made from scratch using the best ingredients. Ed naturally brought these skills and experiences to Proper Crisps. The invention of their classic Salt & Vinegar Crisps highlights his expertise. In NZ, we love our salt & vinegar but most chips of this flavour type don’t even have vinegar in them but, rather, sodium diacitate and multi dextrons (super high on the GI). Ed and his team collaborated with an innovative engineering crew in Nelson to create an encapsulation process that takes real apple cider vinegar and makes it into a crystal that can season the crisps. They are the first in the world to do this.

Next, Proper Crisps looked north to the Kairpara where Kumaras grow aplenty. They brought back huge bags of red, gold and orange kumara and began the R&D necessary to get just the right thicknesses, oil type (rice bran for these ones) and cooking times. They found that cooking times varied for each colour kumara. Such attention to detail results in what I think are the best kumara chips in the world (with, perhaps, a the exception of the red ones in the bag, which don’t quite match the sweetness and crunch of the orange ones). Having got that veg properly in the bag, the Smith’s looked at another iconic South Island root veg – the humble parsnip. They have recently finished their trials, translating all of Stewart Franklin’s core values into a bag of delicately sweet and salty parsnip crisps ready to snack on. In keeping with their values about healthy snacks, the Proper crew have worked hard to keep the fat quantities at a minimum and have searched for a parsnip variety with a higher density so the slices don’t absorb as much oil. I was fortunate enough to be able to try some of the trial versions and they’re a sensational crisp. Light, salty, sweet and delicious.

I really, really, really like this company. Solid values right from the get go, international influences properly localized and innovative flavours perfectly created to be as healthy (and delicious) as a crisp can be. On top of all this, Proper Crisps recycle all of their cooking oils into biodiesel fuels, a smart sustainability move which gets all kinds of cred in my book. The 21 people in the Proper Crisps team who have their work cut out for them keeping up with the demand from happy customers like me, are all working hard in their new kitchen in Stoke (Nelson), applying a proper mentality to the making of these fantastic crisps. I’ve especially appreciated Tina-Maree’s promotional work and her connection with the community (check out their Facebook). Keep your eye out for the new Parsnip Crisps now at Raeward Fresh as well. It’s been well worth the wait for someone to finally nail the production. Thank you Proper Crisps for taking some of NZ’s best and most abundant root veg and turning it into sweet as tasting chips!

On most mornings of the week Morgan Maw gets on her bicycle and rides a few minutes through Eden Terrace to Bonnie Goods’ kitchen. She’ll turn on the ovens, heave a large bag of Otago oats onto the counter, and mix up a batch of dough. Morgan will take her substantial rolling pin and level out the oaty stuff until she’s content with the thickness. She’ll then mark out and hand cut hundreds of wee rectangles, placing them gently onto a baking tray and into the oven until they’re just the right texture of softness and crunch. The lovely Morgan Maw is making Bonnie Oat Cakes.
Oat cakes?

Yep, oat cakes, and here’s why:
Morgan grew up in Taranaki where, like most Kiwi kids, she spent her days mucking around at the beach, baking through Ladies, A Plate and the Edmonds cookbook, as well as generally tinkering around her Dad’s workshop making things. And, like most kiwi kids, Morgan did not grow up eating oatcakes. Instead, she had an active mind that leaned towards crafting and an entrepreneurial streak that got her making jewelry. After leaving school, she began working with Craig Macfarlane at one of his Ozone cafes in New Plymouth. Morgan was inspired by Craig’s energy and innovation and went on to Uni in Wellington to study communication and marketing.

In her second year, Morgan met her now partner Nic and, after graduation, the two went to the travel agency and asked where the cheapest tickets to Europe would land them. Rome. No oat cakes here yet either. They travelled Europe (like most Kiwi kids) and ended up in the UK. London seemed too hectic and a friend of Nic’s was running a hostel in Edinburgh… so Scotland it was. And guess what they eat in Scotland?

Nic got a job in marketing and Morgan got an admin job at Standard Life, which she says felt exactly as the company’s name implies. In her free time Morgan happened upon the Baking Club at Sofi’s (their brother pub Joseph Pearce is this writers’ favourite in the UK) and got creating alongside some of Edinburgh’s best – you guessed it – oat cake makers. Along with an appreciation of great whiskey, Morgan learned the subtleties of the perfect oat cake. Namely, that a great oat cake must compliment the manchego cheese or duck pate (or in Fix & Fogg’s case, peanut butter) and not over or under power it. There must be a certain saltiness (Morgan uses Marlborough sea salt) but not so much that it’s too savory. And, there must be a crunch that speaks of heartiness but not dryness. Morgan learned all these things and came back to NZ to try her hand at, of course, fashion design.

Didn’t work out. And here’s why.
When Morgan returned home to help cater for her brother’s 21st, she decided to buy some oatcakes and couldn’t find any. Hmmm. She made some herself and found her family both bemused and pleased at this foreign fare. Hmmm. She didn’t like the jobs she was getting along the way and it came down to making a decision. Morgan thought back to her time with Craig (who now mentors the couple) working at the New Plymouth cafe and how since childhood, she really wanted to run her own business. And so, like many of our amazing producers at Raeward Fresh, Morgan and Nic decided to risk ‘the secure life’ and become entrepreneurial bakers.

Bonnie Goods Oatcakes were born in November 2013 starting off with an ‘Original’ flavor and then a ‘Linseed’ edition (with linseed sourced from Nic’s uncles farm in Canterbury) was added soon after. Recently, Morgan has made a smoked paprika oatcake to round out (or, rather, square up) the offering. I’ve tried each of these with Mandy’s horseradish, Taste of Provence duck pate, a mix of cheeses, honey & Fix & Fogg peanut butter and they’re all wonderful. Especially Bonnie’s smoked paprika oatcake. There’s something rich and comforting about this reddish oatcake, the colour reminiscent of Central Otago hills during a long slow summer sunset. It’s like nothing you’ve ever had in a cracker or snack and topping it off with a bit of brie or a mouthful of manchego creates a beautiful oatcake experience. Knowing just a bit about Morgan and Nic, I’m sure we’re going to see more innovation, craft and deliciousness come from these two exceptional Kiwi kids.

The Recipe for this week’s blog…
…is to check out the deli counters at Raeward Fresh and pair Bonnie Oatcakes with your favourite Stilton and Zoe’s garden relish. Or, a creamy French Camembert and Provisions Cherry Almond preserves. You can go sweet or savoury with these hearty healthy oatcakes which me and my neighbours have been thoroughly enjoying.

With the notable exceptions of the preservation of corn and fish by the Maori, the only other real Kiwi fermentation tradition has been the making of beer. The Germans have their sauerkraut, the Koreans have their Kimchi and the American Midwesterners have pickled just about everything else. Cold climate cultures have always found a way to preserve foods using fermentation but, in New Zealand’s moderate-to-warm climate culture, we preserve beer to drink when it’s hot… or whenever, actually. Now, we do make some pretty outstanding beer here in NZ, but it’s too bad that this is where our fermentation endeavours end. Cultures that preserve their local abundance with probiotic rich fermentation processes (such as Napa cabbage, daikon radish, carrot and onions for the Koreans) enjoy the super tasty and super healthy benefit of preserves that last pretty much forever as part of their cuisine. And, they aren’t putting heaps of salt or sugar in their condiments.
In fact, properly fermented foods actually reduce sugar cravings – a happy finding Joanna Nolan learnt and experienced when she first explored the the world of live culture (fermented) foods. A personal trainer at the time, she was so impressed with this and a swag of other fermented food benefits that she ended up quitting her day job to create Be Nourished – her current business, making raw, unpasteurized, cultured vegetables & probiotic foods for health.

Like most New Zealanders, Jo grew up eating highly processed, white food staples, such as bread, pasta and sugar. Cornflakes topped with sugar for breakfast, white bread and whatever for lunch… we all know the drill. The litany of health issues to arise from eating like this for decades has become an alarming topic of many contemporary diet conversations, from onset diabetes to childhood obesity. As a personal trainer, Jo worked with heaps of people who had to deal with the sugar cravings born of the Kiwi diet, or wrestle with the increasing number of food allergies they were developing as they grew older. What really struck home, however, was when Jo’s first child started coming down with unexplained allergies. This, combined with the increasing general lack of energy Jo experienced as a young parent, led her to research healthful solutions. She read about the ground breaking studies by Weston Price in the field of fermented food. This topic of inquiry further came to life for Jo in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. Learning how many ancient cultures preserved both their food, and their health, by utilising simple, abundant, everyday ingredients in fermented processes was a life changer for Jo.

Finding properly fermented foods ready to buy on the shop shelves in Auckland in the 1990’s was another matter. Jo was unable to get anything but pasteurized (read: sanitized to death, killing all the essential live cultures) sauerkrauts imported from far away places. The next step, then, was to simply make some for herself. At first she was daunted by the prospect of having to make something that had been developed for centuries without any local knowledge in NZ, and without any professional culinary experience herself. It was pre-internet and YouTube how-to’s for Jo in those days too, so armed with some informative books and possessing a mother’s dedication to the wellbeing of her family, she dove in and began making proper sauerkraut. Proper sauerkraut means small batch, live culture food with naturally grown cabbage, spices and a slow three phase lacto-fermentation process. Eventually, the adventure had a happy ending for Jo, who was surprised at how easy fermenting food was once she got the hang of it. She also found that by making these foods a regular part of her diet she lost her sugar cravings, felt her energy and mental acuity return and her son’s allergies went bye bye.

In effect, Jo’s digestive system was being rebooted. Her gut gained the living probiotics and phytochemicals it needed to absorb all the nutrients she was eating – probably for the first time in her life! Typically, our stomachs only absorb around 20% of the available nutrients in our food. Fermented foods can boost this uptake to around 80%, which has many positive effects across our metabolic functions. (The health aspects of Be Nourished products are better described on Jo’s web site which you can find here). Jo was so glad with the personal health results that she started sharing her homemade fermented foods with friends. As you might imagine, Jo’s friends weren’t quite as enthusiastic about the prospect of sauerkraut as she was. Undaunted, and emboldened by her families increasing health, Jo decided to bottle up some of her recipes and take them to the Oratia Farmers Market. But the response was the same. The guy next to her selling Pics Peanut Butter had jars flying off the table while her sauerkraut sat there, continuing to ferment.

Jo knew how tasty and healthy her creations were but the average Kiwi neighbour or market shopper just didn’t get it. It wasn’t until she took a few jars to some friends who ran a proper health food store that things started to change. People who knew raw foods and understood what a bit of raw Apple Cider could do to jumpstart the metabolism in the morning (for instance) saw Jo’s live-culture foods as a blessing. They appreciated that Jo’s recipes moved way past the hippie raw-food-in-a-jar vibe (really healthy but stinky as, and, super strange tasting) and into some highly developed and refined sauerkrauts and kimchi. Jo had both the common sense and ability to take the best of her local food environment and blend it in a delicious way. Her culinary results were crying out to be paired with elements of a newly developing Kiwi cuisine. For example, her Helena Bay Sauerkraut is a mix of cabbage, carrot, onion, garlic, ginger and a hint of chilli, the combination of which comes from her living in that beautiful region up North. She pairs this kick-ass kraut with a steak sandwich, or tacos and nachos. A great fish taco on a soft corn tortilla needs a good slaw but Jo’s Helena Bay mix works even better (in my opinion), adding a lovely kick to the battered or blackened fish in the taco.

Recapturing and reconfiguring of foods from far away times and places is another facet of modern Kiwi cuisine and it’s boutique producers serving up their best. For Jo, it’s about health and flavour, two essential aspects of a good life. Having been eating Be Nourished all week, I’m feeling pretty good myself, and, I have to say Jo’s nailed both the classic flavour dynamics of traditional sauerkrauts and kimchi (I grew up with both) and added some lovely fresh twists which I’ve found a delightful addition to my morning toast, can salmon salads and a number of dishes I look forward to creating in the coming weeks. Jo will also be adding to her range of fermented food in the coming months so keep your eye out and your taste buds open.
(Keep your Be Nourished goods in the fridge as these foods are alive, and will keep you so too.)

Recipe: Raw Probiotic Salad Dressing Recipe


Jo was kind enough to pass on one of her favourite salad dressings, which would be great on a mixed salad of any kind.
1 Part – Be Nourished Sauerkraut Juice any flavour
1 Part – Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil
2 Parts – Braggs All Purpose Seasoning (also at Raeward Fresh)
2 Parts – Tahini (hulled or un-hulled I like hulled for a lighter flavour)
Put all ingredients into a jar and shake to mix.

Oonagh Browne makes chocolate from the heart. She chooses ingredients based on her inner passions and combines them in ways that delight her soul. Her production process is a meditation of sorts, whereby she forms each chocolate rolled ginger, or sesame thin slab, with the intention to bless. She shares her heart via these creations at her cafe, at the Littleton markets and, now, at Raeward Fresh in Queenstown where I had the good fortune to try them out.
Oonagh’s certified organic chocolate was rich and smooth, tempered perfectly to create the essential snap and crunch of a first bite, quickly followed with that smooth, melt-in-your-mouth-endorphin-stimulating sweetness. Then the ginger hit – all kinds of spicy and candied notes melded in with the cacao (making me very, very happy). And the Fresh Truffles! Each one in the box of six were delicious revelations of dark caramels and rich fruity creams (like lime!) encased in delicate chocolate architectures. This is Oonagh’s goal, to spread some love through the work of her and the whole teams hands.

Oonagh grew up in Baltinglass, Ireland, where chocolate meant Cadburys. It wasn’t until later in life, when she took a business trip to Belgium, that she discovered chocolate could be so much more. Having finished her business degree, Oonagh worked for a multinational in London. Despite doing well, she longed for her life to be more creative and fulfilling. Hosting dinners and expressing herself through hospitality covered some of this ground but, at the end of the day, working in a business that didn’t operate from her passions made her feel as though her soul would shrivel up and waste away. It seemed to her at that point that the most logical thing to do (as it seems to be for many people) was to head to the Himalayas.
Oonagh shook off London in the mountains of Nepal, went on to study meditation in Thailand and discovered during her sojourn how wonderful New Zealand is for the soul. She went on to Australia for a time, where her love of creating with first chocolate began. She discovered how to be creative through practicing a moving meditation called The Form. Oonagh met the founder (B Prior) who told her he was planning on opening a centre in NZ. She loved the idea of being a part of something that was about more then just business as usual. She joined with Bernie, Suzanne Johnson and Declan Scott to create She Universe, a business that was about expressing human potential and heart in the business world, one beautiful chocolate at a time.

Misc Notes on the other samplings I did.
• The Hot Chocolate Original Swirlers, a package of three chunky blocks of hot chocolate on a stick, were a whimsical answer to my question; “where oh where in NZ can I get a fantastic hot chocolate”?. I melted the full cream milk in my milk frother and swirled the chocolate cube on a stick until my hot chocolate was ready. Of course, I did take a few licks of the cube along the way, the wonderful coconut sugar blending wonderfully with the dark chocolate. The result was a creamy hot choc that was smooth and rich. Perfect, especially because the coconut sugar happens to have healthy amounts of magnesium and zinc. I couldn’t be happier.
• The six Fresh Truffles were fabulous. Especially the burnt caramel and the lime cream, and the rose water turkish delight’ish truffles. I ate all six within minutes. I have been around the world and She has nailed it. I could compare these truffles with any in Paris or NYC. Well done crew!
• The Mayan (70%) Raspberry bar was dark, thick and sprinkled with dried raspberries which was perfect as they melted at the same time the chocolate did on the palette. I was impressed with the tempering and that lovely sweet / fruity sourness that speaks of a cacao kept in tact through the chocolate making process. This bar will last a while as a simple bite is enough to hold you in paradise for long enough.