WEEK # 5 / 2013 — It’s difficult to let your tongue go past the blue mould cheese called Berry’s Creek ‘tarwin blue’. Made by Barry and Cheryl Charlton at Poowong in Victoria’s southern Gippsland from milk from a herd of jersey cows on the Hutchinson family’s nearby farm, this semi-hard blue is superbly balanced. Rhys Evans from Australia on a Plate, Granny Smith’s supplier, says that ‘the pâté of tarwin blue is straw-coloured with striations of greenish-blue mould. It should be moist and not too crumbly. It has a creamy texture and long intensity with definite earthy tones on the finishing palate. It continues to be a cheese-of-choice among many our of customers. And we tasted it last Sunday with a glass or two of French Sathenay cremant de Bourgogne brut NV. A lovely match (bought next door at C’ellar Vie) it was for the cheese. ‘Another unprepossessing label design concealing a very good French sparkling wine,’ writes Ralph Kyte-Powell in The Sydney Morning Herald’s goodfood. ‘Stone fruit, shortbread and yeasty characters mark a smooth wine of good depth and richness. A trace of sweetness fills out the palate and it finishes with a sustained tingle in the mouth.’

Our cheeses
Granny Smith’s weekly, numbered ‘cheese choice’ is part of a series featuring the varieties in our cheese cabinet. We stock Australian-only fine cheeses and dairy products as a matter of principle. We think that this is a first for any grocer or cheesemonger in the country. (We make an exception only for organic parmesan from Italy, as we’re yet to find an Australian-made cheese to match it, but when we do we’ll offer it.) We’re also working in our quiet way to try to encourage change to Australia’s dairy regulations that would allow our farmers and cheesemakers to offer responsibly-produced raw milk products to grocers and eaters.

Links
Granny Smith’s Australian ‘first’

GRANNY Smith will be open throughout the Christmas 2012 and New Year 2013 summer holiday season except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Please note shorter trading hours for the week after Christmas and from Wednesday 02 to Saturday 19 January 2013:

Christmas to New Year’s Eve 2012
Sat 22 Dec: 8:00am – 4:00pm
Sun 23 Dec: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Mon 24 Dec: 8:00am – 4:00pm
Tue 25 and Wed 26 Dec: closed
Thu 27 and Fri 28 Dec: 10:00am – 4:00pm
Sat 29 Dec: 9:00am – 1:00pm
Mon 31 Dec: closed

Wed 02 to Sat 19 Jan 2013
Weekdays: 10:00am – 4:00pm
Saturday: 9:00am – 1:00pm

Mon 21 Jan 2013
Normal trading hours resume

JERSEY and a small mix of holstein friesian cows grazing on grass pastures containing shepherd’s purse, chicory, self heal and persian clover produce the certified organic milk now stocked by Granny Smith Natural Food Market. Josef and Antonia Gretschmann emigrated to Tasmania from a Bavarian village in Germany in 1986 and afterwards bought Elgaar farm near Deloraine, in the island’s north. They soon set about changing the farm’s agricultural system to organic methods and achieved certification in 1991. The Gretschmanns and their cows have since been producing award-winning organic milk and cream and the Gretschmanns making yoghurt, butter and soft and hard cheese.

The Gretschmanns say that maintaining the ‘absolute best of ingredients’ — milk — is at the heart of their business and approach to dairying. ‘Elgaar Farm’s contented cows graze on lush organic meadows and aromatic hay free from pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilisers, supplemented with organically grown wheat and oats in the winter months,’ says Joe. ‘The high quality of the milk our cows produce is a reflection of the richness and diversity of grasses and herbs of the fields they graze.’

‘Every one of our valued cows given a name and this is very much a reflection of the way we care for them. Our herd grazes in rich pastures surrounded by trees, providing both shade from the sun and shelter from the weather. They are treated with respect and dignity, and any illness is treated with natural remedies and no antibiotics, hormones or any other artificial inputs are administered.’

Most Australian dairy cows are sold after producing milk for five years, but the Gretschmann cows yield for up to 10. On retirement the cows graze the Elgaar paddocks for the rest of their natural lives, although they still present at the dairy for the twice-daily milking routine. Antonia says that one of their cows lived to 38.

The farm and its products are certified by Tasmania Organic-Dynamic Producers (TOP), the island state’s own Australian Quarantine Inspection Service-accredited organic and biodynamic certification system. All Elgaar milk, cream and yoghurt is packaged in returnable glass bottles and jars. Each bottle and jar is returned an average of nine times.

Read more about Elgaar dairy.

WHEN Jean Giffen Monro emigrated from Scotland to Sydney in 1922 she carried a recipe for fruit cake that was a favourite of her brother Bill. Through family connections, we’ve been privileged to leaf through Jean’s cherished recipe book and to test ‘Uncle Bill’s cake’ for Christmas 2012.

We made what turned out to be a beautifully moist, handsome, fruit-enriched cake — containing fresh dates and dark molasses in place of treacle — from Jean’s hand-written recipe. But the method was missing. We think the recipe was written out by Jean in 1931 or 1932 in her kitchen at ‘Inverary’, near Borambola in the Murrumbidgee valley, east of Wagga Wagga, where she farmed with her husband Bert.

At the end of the list of ingredients, the recipe simply shows, in her bold hand, ‘3 hours’ as the cooking time, but no method was recorded. So we tracked down a fruit cake method from Barossa chef and Slow Food’s number one cardholder in Australia, Maggie Beer, adapted it, and made a test cake. This we offered as samples at Granny Smith’s Turramurra store at the start of November. It was delicious and led to a commission for the Christmas table of one of our customers! (Must get on to that.)

Download Jean’s recipe and try it for yourself.

GRANNY Smith Natural Food Market’s community of customers, neighbours, friends and staff are invited to share apple cake with us this Saturday — 24 November 2012 — to celebrate our tenth anniversary. The cake — or ‘muffins of cake’ from a recipe of organic granny smith apple and beurre bosc pears — has been created by Anne Kenyon especially for our celebration and it’s truly delicious. ‘I’ll also be slipping in a few peaches that I picked up from Granny Smith on Monday,’ said Anne.

As another highlight of our Saturday birthday we’ll be hosting a tasting by Marrickville chef Pete Mason of his Mason Rose Fine Foods‘ labels that are ever popular at our store. These include roast butternut and almond curry and bolognese. To the bolognese we’ll be adding Pasta Emilia’s chittara, for ‘pasta without sauce is like facebook without friends’, as Pasta Emilia’s Anna Maria Eoclidi remarks.

We’ll also be tasting a selection from our Australian-only cheese offering. If there’s one thing you do before the week is out, let Old Telegraph Road washed rind ‘robin hood’ rob a piece of your heart, try Holy Goat’s organic ‘la luna’— rated one of the country’s finest cheeses by Victoria’s Taste Cheese monger and critic Laurie Gutteridge…’when I first tasted it…I nearly wept with joy’ — and sample Berry Creek’s tremendous ‘tarwin blue’.

We look forwarding to sharing our cake and tastings:

When Saturday 24 November 2012
From 10:00am
Where Granny Smith Natural Food Market, 6 Princes Street, Turramurra NSW 2074