espresso October 2012

o s s e r se p

www.espressomagazine.co.nz | October 2012 | Volume 01 | Issue 06

e r u t l u c ĂŠ f a c & d o o f fast

Turning the

tables on winter

page 12

The quest for good coffee page 18 No bull! It's authentic Turkish food page 20

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editorial

lture & café cu fast food

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wice in the past fortnight I have been in the public toilets in a mall and seen a food worker come out of the stall, straighten their clothing, fuss with their hair, peer critically at their face…and leave without washing their hands.

Needless to say there are two food outlets that I no longer patronise and neither do my friends. I cannot even begin to comprehend that an adult would not wash their hands after using the toilet, especially a public one.

Equally, I fail to understand why cafés allow children to run riot on their premises. A family member recently was in a well-known North Shore café where two children were lying on the seats drumming their feet on the wall.

They were rowdy then and they were rowdy when they were previously running around the tables. A customer asked the waitress to ask the children and/or their oblivious parent to stop the noisy and intrusive behavior. The waitress said she couldn’t, that they weren’t allowed to bother the customer.

What?! You’re not allowed to demand a certain standard of behavior in your own premises? You would risk the continued patronage of everyone else in the café so as not to offend the one customer who couldn’t care less? And what about the health and safety aspects? I’ve seen one waitress come to grief falling over an errant child, cutting her hand on the resultant broken glass. That’s just (as they say in the current vernacular) like, nuts!

Another café on my don’t-bother-goingback list.

www.espressomagazine.co.nz a Mediaweb magazine EDITOR: Jane Warwick E: editor@espressomagazine.co.nz CONSULTING EDITOR: John Clarke SALES MANAGER: James Ellis jamese@mediaweb.co.nz P: +64 9 529 3000 ADVERTISING CO-ORDINATOR: Pip Maclean P:+64 9 529 3000 E: ads@mediaweb.co.nz DESIGNER: Bex Mikaere

Lynn Ryall had her hot coffee spilled into her lap when the table was jogged by a disobedient preschooler. The mother was mortified and apologetic and insisted Lynn take $20 to dry-clean her skirt. The café mopped up the mess, replaced her coffee and the waiter ran across the road and bought her a fresh newspaper, even though her original one was only wet in the corner. A few minutes later a chastened small boy came up to her and gave her a paper napkin upon which he had written, in a very wobbly hand, ‘I am sorry from David’ along with a passable drawing of a flower.

How hard was that? Not hard at all. I bet that little boy had been taught to wash his hands, too.

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contents

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When coffee can only get better - New Zealand has an excellent reputation for coffee but there is always room for improvement; Icon meets icon; In the pink; New sandwich range; The science of healthy chips; The real oil; Double the taste; Esquires Onehunga; Local point of difference; New World wine awards; Bake or Buy? Readers answer; Starbucks not the Kiwi way?; Lid lickingly good; New look Ti Tonic; A taste of Italy; Gravity coffee.

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café culture

Turning the tables on winter 12

It’s nearly officially summer and perhaps it is time to think about al

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fresco dining for your customers. We list the dos, don’ts and maybes of how to go about it.

Café of the month – A fur seal on the doorstep.

Patrice Rogers owns the Lakeview Café on Chatham Island. It’s a great lifestyle but the way Patrice has to run her business, is a whole different take from cafés on mainland New Zealand.

High praise for high teas.

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The results of the Dilmah High Tea Challenge

Raising a storm in a teacup

Merrill Fernando firmly believes we must share our successes with the poor and needy. It is not an option, it is mandatory. Successful businesses should share some of their success to help make this a better world.

Barista of the month – The quest for good coffee 18

Kirstie Stanway landed the job as intern on MORE FM. Little did she

realise that would include being sent across the Pacific in the name of a good cup of coffee as well as learning how to be a barista.

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fast foods

Fast food of the month – No bull! It's authentic Turkish food 20

Bulls is just a little town in the Manawatu but that doesn’t preclude

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it from serving authentic Turkish food, once to 200 customers in one night. The secret is having capable, well-trained staff, good, well-practised systems and the Jabies’ most endearing feature, commented on by many patrons, the personal touch.

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pizza pasta

Pasta of the month – Keeping a good thing going 28

When Greg Williams and Anthea Potter took over successful neighbourhood bistro, Delicious, they knew that whatever else they did, they would never, ever change the successful pasta menu.

Pizza of the month – Re-inventing the (dough) wheel 30

John Palino now calls New Zealand home. But he brought a little

bit of New York ingenuity with him – frozen pizza dough. Now the time-consuming business of making dough from scratch can be a thing of the past for those with pizza on their menus in New Zealand

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Features

Choose frozen – When a chill in the air is good Although café owners like to use as much fresh produce as possible, frozen products are an invaluable part of the menu. Espresso gives the lowdown on some good options for your freezer.

spaces – Turning small into big at heart 26 IsSmall your café just a small space? Don’t let size deter you, advises

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Cheryl Yates of wee local café, Castor Sugar. Turn a small space into something quirky and furnish it with things that fit the space, rather than making the space fit the furnishings.

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When coffee

can only get better

Whether it’s espresso or filter is immaterial to coffee luminary David Burton; what really riles him is wastage and snobbery. Kathy Ombler reports from the recent Hospitality New Zealand Conference in Wellington.

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ew Zealand’s excellent reputation in the world of coffee is admirable but we can make it even better, encourages David Burton of Jack’s Coffee, roasted in Auckland’s Eastern suburbs.

“As a nation we have gone from following (the world) to leading. Why are we so successful? Because we buy the best coffee available, we have a bunch of young kids striving to be top baristas on a world stage and we have a very fine milk product.”

And we don’t sit still. “Look at the market now and we are just seeing the start of a turnaround with people going back to

soft-brewing, which I think is a good thing.”

Burton has certainly seen coffee evolve during his career, initially with supplier Burton Hollis and Auckland shop Columbus Coffee, now with his smaller, private supplier Jack’s Coffee.

“We established Burton Hollis in 1990 and by the mid-90s, with new roasters and new café owners, my phone stopped ringing.

So we introduced the Gravity brand and things started moving again. Since then there has been further increase in competition, more roasters, and more roasters establishing their own cafés.

“This is all good for the industry; it’s constantly pushing the bar higher.”

Nevertheless Burton sees opportunity for people to make a better return from coffee.

“I find my (trade) customers hardly do any work on their costings. There are two things they can’t change, the buying price and the selling price, so they need to understand what’s happening in the middle.”

Different cup sizes, for starters; use too big a cup and for every ten kilos of coffee you’re probably spending $1200 more on milk, plus you’re affecting the balance of the drink, he says. “A well-made coffee should be in harmony with the milk.”

Thinking balance and cost, the trend to stronger coffees is an issue for Burton.

“It’s certainly getting over-concentrated.

The trend to higher concentrated coffee

and double shots slows the machines and the drink becomes unbalanced. It changes the balance between the coffee and the milk – you lose those chocolaty, orange flavours – and it’s twice the coffee cost.”

A good analogy here is a gin and tonic, he says. “You allow, say 60 mls of gin – that’s your coffee – and your tonic – that’s your milk. You’d want a bartender to follow the recipe, for consistency of taste and for costings, so you need to see the same balance in coffee.”

Keep your coffee menu simple so it’s easy for customers to understand, he adds, and understand your machines. “Check the grinder to ensure it’s grinding the right amount. As temperatures and humidity change during the day the grinder will need adjusting. Dose your coffee correctly – more and more I see baristas finger dosing, by hand. It is very important you are grinding the right amount of coffee for each coffee you make.

“A major annoyance is the amount of coffee that gets wasted because the barista is too quick, the coffee misses the bucket and spills,” he adds. A handy tool he suggests is the ‘coffee catcher’, which helps reduce waste coffee, eliminates mess and can act as a scraper to help get consistent dosage.

Milk is another terrible area of waste, says Continued on pg4

BOOK GIVEAWAY Casual Cooking – Annabelle White There is not much Annabelle White doesn’t know about food and New Zealander’s relationship with it. She knows our tastes and our expectations, so her latest book, Casual Cooking, is going to be an asset in any kitchen, whether domestic or commercial.

There are several quick recipes which are ideal to whip up in a

café with a minimum of fuss, such as the Easy Crab Cakes that can be served with salad or used to top an open sandwich. Tuna and corn potato cakes are also quick, easy, cheap and delicious, just the thing for a café cabinet.

Easy recipes for a salsa, vinaigrette, two sauces and a marinade will also help give some

interest to your dishes.

All in all, a useful book for any café, bistro or bakery.

We have a copy to give away.

Please e-mail to editor@espressomagazine.co.nz with Casual Cooking by Annabelle White in the subject line. The winner will be announced in the November issue of espresso.

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In the pink Icon meets icon One of the most recognisable symbols of the Western world will cosy up to one of the most recognisable in the Eastern when McDonalds opens a vegetarianonly restaurant next to the Golden Temple in Amritsar in India.

Ironically the Golden Temple was built for everyone, no matter what cast, creed or race as a place to pray to their particular God without censure from anyone else. Sans the deity, that would also apply to McDonalds’ restaurants.

A second vegetarian outlet will open near Vaishno Devi shrine (JammuK ashmir). Menus in the company’s existing Indian outlets are said to be already about 50% vegetarian due to Hindu beliefs.

When five Samuel Marsden School Students participating in the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) approached Whittaker’s to see if it was possible to do something pink with chocolate to raise money for the Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, the company also said YES. The result is White Raspberry chocolate, which is an infusion of natural raspberry into Whittaker’s traditional 28% cocoa white chocolate.

Brand manager Holly Whittaker said creating a brand new product especially to support a good cause was a meaningful way to give back to loyal customers and the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation will receive 20 cents from every block sold this month, which is Breast Cancer Awareness

month. A minimum of $25,000 is expected to be raised with this initiative.

Peanut Butter chocolate, another new Whittaker product released this year, sold out, so it is expected consumers will also be quick to pick up the White Raspberry flavour.

Whittaker’s White Raspberry chocolate is available nationwide in 250g blocks, at the same price as the rest of the Whittaker’s 250g range.

New sandwich range Muffin Break has introduced a new bread range that its general manager, Garry Croft says will satisfy everyone’s palate. New fillings are BLT, chicken & avocado, corned beef, Roast beef feast, ham fruitti, sweet chilli chicken or veggie. The traditional club or Kiwi club sandwiches remain.

Cajun chicken is a new wrap flavour joining the existing caesar chicken and sweet soy chicken flavours. New panini fillings include chicken & cranberry and sweet chilli chicken.

Continued from pg3

Burton. “The amount either tipped down the sink or, even worse, re-worked, is huge.

People can be lazy and grab the first jug available. There are two important things about milk, to have a good variety – full, green and soy, for example – and to have a full selection of jugs. Four or five is a good number and the depth of the jug is also important, to give the nozzle room to froth the milk. Remember, if you froth the milk too much the amount of foam not used adds to your wastage.”

Efficiency helps save costs. “(Have your baristas) practise making different coffees at once, get used to the flows; things can

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get hectic and they need to Simple coffee menu: understand what’s happening • Espresso at that machine. I think now we • Double Espresso + hot water = long black are going to a further extreme, • Espresso + milk = flat white/cappuccino baristas wanting to grind and • Espresso + hot chocolate = moccachino make coffee for only one person • Double espresso + milk = latte at a time. If a bus load of tourists arrive, it’s time to let the grinder And finally – as a general rule – forget do its job.”

And training is huge, he adds. “One thing the snobbery. “There’s a real snobbery about that disappoints me is when I go in to do coffee that disappoints me. When you’re in training and the owner or manager isn’t this industry you don’t care if people drink present. Owners – you need to be leading a pinot or a beer, whereas there are plenty from the front, raising the bar right across of people who drink a flat white and look your coffee making.” down on people who drink filter.”

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healthy chips The Chip Group, a collaboration of industry members involved in the preparation of deep-fried chips, is holding a series of “Tips for Better Chips” Training Workshops throughout New Zealand. The workshops are free of charge to all fish and chip operators and anyone who is involved or interested in learning what it takes to fry better chips.

The initiative was started to teach Kiwis that hot chips are not necessarily bad chips and to show them that there is a healthy way to continue their love affair with these delicious morsels.

The Group’s ‘overriding goal’ is to improve the nutritional status of deep-fried chips served by independent takeaway outlets, including the reduction of fat (total and saturated) and salt content.

A set of Industry Standards has been compiled, based on robust science, which, when followed, can produce a chip with far less fat. Potatoes, advises the Chip Group, are a very nutritious food source. Fresh out of the paddock they contain 0.1% fat; upon leaving the manufacturing plant they contain around 4% fat; but once the chips end up in the customer’s fish and chip wrapper they can be anywhere from 7-22% fat.

This final step of frying is referred to as the 'Danger Zone'.

The Group says it is confident that when operators follow its Industry Standards they can keep more fat in the vat and off New Zealander’s hips.

Those that can’t make the seminars can undertake on-line training. Course certificates of achievement are issued to display to discerning customers in-store.

Further information can be found at chipgroup.co.nz

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Double the taste Classic Double Chocolate ice cream is the newest flavour in OOB’s organic range, which is available from this month.

The variety joins OOB’s other 470ml icecream flavours, Vanilla Bean, Peppermint Chip & Blueberry.

The real oil The Chip Group has released an approved list of frying oils that have been analysed by independent laboratories to make it easier for foodservice operators and chefs to choose better deep-frying oils.

• Chefs Gold Cottonseed Oil • Bakels Ultrafry • Cookright Hi Lo Canola Oil • Cookright Tasty Fry Canola Oil • Cookright Cottonseed Oil • Cookright Rice Bran Oil • Peerless Formula 40 Cottonseed Oil • Peerless Sunbeam Cottonseed Oil • Sunnz Riceola Rice Bran Oil • Amco Cottonseed Oil Contact the oil supplier for more information on each product.

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Local point of difference

Esquires Coffee House Dressmart 151 Arthur Street – Onehunga - Auckland It was one of those days when I just wanted ‘something nice’ to eat. You know the feeling – the ‘something nice’ is undefined and the need is often petulant. On the search for the elusive ‘something nice’ you can consider and discard several things that everyone would consider more than nice, but somehow none of it measures up to the indeterminate craving you have.

Then suddenly there, on the second shelf of the cabinet at Esquires in Dressmart Onehunga (Auckland) something caught my eye. I don’t know why, but it did and I wasn’t disappointed; I wasn’t disappointed at all. The Bacon & Egg quiche was delicious. It was light in texture and wonderfully heavy with flavour. The filo pastry case was lined with bacon and the beaten egg poured into the middle. Inside the quiche mixture was another whole egg yolk like a yellow pearl. Praveena Umaria bakes these fresh on site every day and you will have to move quickly to get one – they sell out quickly and with very good reason. And if I could have talked the bashful Praveena into having her picture taken, she would also have made our Service with a Smile column.

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It’s an ongoing search, looking for that point of difference between you and the next café, trying to win the local market. Here’s something that might tip the balance – local food. Not only local, but traditional local food – kina pate and paua relish for example.

The IndigenousNZ Cuisine Cluster is made up of a group of Maori food and drinks businesses, who have joined together to improve their chances of selling authentic Kiwi product that includes wine, beer and other beverages, artisan breads, manuka honey products, sea food, sauces, spices and much more.

Although the group is looking at its international prospects, it is also intending to build its local market.

There are 22 members of the group so far and more waiting to come on board. So check out the list below and see what you can add to your menu to not only give a significant point of difference to your cabinet but also support New Zealand grown produce.

Members: Aotearoa Breweries – Mata Craft beers – mata.net.nz Apatu Aqua Enterprises Ltd – Fresh Fish, Eel, Kina, Smoked Fish, Kina Pate – lucy@inz.maori.nz BioFarm – Organic Yoghurt, Milk & Butter – biofarm.co.nz Bird Wines – Wine – birdwines.com Boosta – Manuka bars/gels – naturescountrygold.co.nz

Hema Water – Sparkling & Still Mineral Water – hemawater.co.nz Kaitaia Fire - Organic chilli sauces – kaitaiafire.com Kai Ora Farms – Manuka Honey/ Native Honey, Pacific Oysters (July to Oct) – kaiorafarms.co.nz Mesa Meats – Alpaca meats – mesamill.com Nature's Country Gold – Honey – naturescountrygold.co.nz Origin Mega Cress – Gourmet micro greens – originmegacress.vpweb.co.nz/ Ostler Wines – Wine – ostlerwine.co.nz Ringawera – Bakery – ringawera. com/ RoMack Industries – Vanilla, coffee, coconut cream, spices – tamati@romack.co.nz Taha Beverages Ltd – Kawakawa/ manuka/ginger non-alcoholic beverage – tahabeverages.com (not live yet) Tiki Wines – wine – tikiwine.com Ti Tonics – non-alcoholic tea based beverages – titonics.com Toku Foods Ltd – Paua preserves – tokufoodsnz.com

Chatham Island Food Co – Seafood – chathamislandfood.com

Torere Macadamias – Macadamia nuts and confectionary derivatives – macnz.co.nz

Cloudy Bay Clams – Range of clams – cloudybayclams.com

Watson & Son – Manuka products – watsonandson.co.nz

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Bake or buy? Readers answer In the last issue of espresso, we attempted to debate whether it is better for the bottom line and for customer satisfaction, to bake or buy, whether it is worth baking your own goods or buying in. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a question those contacted didn’t want to answer. Sandie Odlum of the Rangiriri Café in the Waikato can’t understand why.

“Customers ask us where we get our product all the time and we tell them exactly what I make and what I don’t. When I first took over this business, some customers were disappointed that they were no longer going to get their favourite pies or other hot treats. But I told them that of course they were; they were Dad’s Pies or Oxford Savouries and were brought in.”

“I don’t have enough hours in the day to bake and run the café. There are a few pies I do bake, such as our smoked fish pie, but I’m happy to get the rest in. It’s the same with our carrot cake. I have baked carrot cake in the past but I can’t find a recipe that matches the great taste of the one I buy in. Gluten Free products are the same – why struggle trying to produce those items when someone out there has already perfected it?

“The customer will lose faith in your product if you lie – and anyway, what is the point of lying? I can’t understand that at all. The customers aren’t idiots – it’s not going to take them long to spot that same slice you swore you baked yourself in someone else’s cabinet.

There’s a place I stop at when I’m on the road that is part of a chain. They say everything is baked on site. I don’t believe that to be true.

There are items in there that are, down to the fork dents and other marks in the pastry, the same as those I buy in myself. I could swear to it. It makes me laugh to myself. But it’s a good product; I’m happy to buy one off them.

“I don’t have enough hours in the day to

bake everything. Unless I’m prepared to have a small cabinet with little variety, I simply can’t do it.”

However, Cheryl Yates at Castor Sugar on Auckland’s North Shore is all for baking her own cabinet. Her café is much smaller than Odlum's and she is better able to gauge just how many customers she might have in a week, whereas Odlum's café is part of a heritage centre and who knows how many visitors might call in.

“Cooking from scratch saves money,” says Yates. “So many of my cost-cutting experiments have proven this – the highest cost is staff. However, staff that can multitask are the best – cooking menu food and baking at the same time!

“But there’s one area where I’m starting to think it might not be so true… cakes. Baking is one of our passions and I love serving guests our homemade treats. Fairy cakes, birthday cakes, cake pops, fruit muffins …

“I was recently re-stocking our baking shelf and I realised just how much Castor Sugar was spent on baking paraphernalia, cake decorations and recipe books. I had six packets of ready-made sugar flowers, balls and edible glitter each costing a pretty packet. That’s dollars’ worth of cake decorations before you even get to the icing kits, packets of marzipan and the high quality chocolate we prefer to use. However, that aside, good, exploding muffins and home-made scones might have a more rustic look but they are popular and people much prefer those to the perfect torte bought in and portioned. There is less wastage too.

“Lastly, there is a reason why cake stalls at Spring Fairs are so popular – home-cooked is the best, even when it comes to candy and chocolate.”

“So Bake or Buy? I say bake!” says Yates.

New World wine awards Cafés that have a glass or two of wine on their menus will be interested in the results of the recent New World Wine Awards.

One thousand and eight wines were entered this year and were judged by an independent panel of 13 expert wine judges. New Zealand wines took out top honours in all three of the ultimate ‘taste-offs’ by the judging panel to select the Champion Red, White and Sparkling Wines: • Champion Red – Mud House Pinot Noir 2010 • Champion White – Wild Rock Pania Chardonnay 2010 • Champion Bubbles – Brancott Estate Sparkling Rosé Jim Harré, chair of the judging panel, said the awards' results are eagerly anticipated by consumers as is reflected by the fact that, even with the required minimum of 500 cases available, last year's Champion White sold out nationwide in 10 days.

If you want to know more about the awards and how they were judged and to pick up a few ideas about which wines to add to your menu, visit newworld.co.nz/wineawards

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Starbucks not the kiwi way?

Starbucks’ New Zealand operation has dropped its retail pricing by about 10% and is offering free espresso shots in a bid to boost its struggling sales.

The New Zealand Herald* reported that the 33-store coffee chain suffered a 5.1 per cent drop in second quarter total sales to $7.5 million compared with a year earlier and was looking to change customers’ perceptions [of Starbucks].

The NZH asked the opinion of Jon Bird, chairman of Sydney-based retail marketing specialists IdeaWorks, to which he replied that Starbucks had always struggled to gain traction with Kiwi consumers because this country already had a strong coffee culture when the chain first launched here in 1998. He added ‘that kind of American cultural imperialism, when it comes to coffee, just doesn’t work in New Zealand’.

Interesting we thought and so we asked Bird ourselves for a personal view of the Kiwi coffee culture and he told espresso this: “More than just a great coffee culture, New Zealand has a great food culture full stop. To the eyes (and palate) of an Australian like me (and I suspect many overseas visitors), New Zealand is clean, green and gourmet. In terms of coffee, I've had many a memorable cup at Depot, next to the Sky City Grand Hotel in Auckland, and also at Farro Fresh in Lunn Ave. There are a few I'd like to check out too – Mojo is supposed to be great in terms of chains, and Deus Ex Machina's Shed 5 Café is on my coffee

bucket list too. When you stack Starbucks up against all that, well….why would you bother going to an American chain that serves up Grande something-or-others? According to ratings agency Canstar, one in three Kiwis consider themselves coffee enthusiasts so they know their beans and they're not going to buy inferior coffee concoctions. Australia too has its share of excellent coffee houses, particularly in Melbourne (and Starbucks struggled in Oz too), but for my money the

Starbucks' mission statement according to its website includes the following: When we are fully engaged, we connect with, laugh with, and uplift the lives of our customers – even if just for a few moments.

Sure, it starts with the promise of a perfectly made beverage, but our work goes far beyond that. It’s really about human connection.

When our customers feel this sense of belonging, our stores become a haven, a break from the worries outside, a place where you can meet with friends. It’s about enjoyment at the speed of life – sometimes slow and savored, sometimes faster. Always full of humanity.

Lid lickingly good It’s just over quarter of a century since the French brand Yoplait arrived on these shores, just the time to give it a bit of a make-over.

The new look includes new packaging, new taste, new flavours and a new tag line – lid lickingly good.

Yoplait says the new product is creamier and packed with more real fruit. Flavours include strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, vanilla, mango, citrus, mixed berries, blackberry, peach, apple and cinnamon. Yoplait.co.nz

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coffee in NZ is even better.”

Thank you Jon Bird. While the outlets he refers to are in Auckland, we think we can safely guarantee that there are memorable cups of coffee to be enjoyed the length and breadth of Aotearoa. *New Zealand Herald – 25/09/2012 Page B3

Jon Bird has 30 years’ experience in advertising and communications, starting as a copywriter and creative director and progressing to agency management. He was the founding partner of IdeaWorks, a retail marketing specialist offering an integrated set of services specifically designed to meet the needs of retail-focussed marketers. He briefly left the company to be the director of retail marketing at M&C Saatchi where he worked across Australia, New Zealand and the US markets.

Back at IdeaWorks he has been involved in a myriad of dynamic businesses including Woolworths, Westfield, Nuance (Downtown Duty Free) and many more. He is passionate about retail marketing and undertakes regular overseas retail study tours to keep up to date on current trends.

New look Ti Tonic Ti Tonic super teas have a whole new look with labels further reflecting the brews' origins as a true New Zealand product.

Ti Tonic's super teas are offered as an advanced blend of premium white tea, grape seed extract and subtle fruit flavours. They’re super-low in sugar and super-rich in polyphenols, nature’s most powerful antioxidants. Each flavour has a fusion of white tea, grape seed and natural fruit flavours. No artificial flavours, sweeteners or preservatives. The sugar content is less than 3g per serving and an ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbing Capacity) value of between 3000 and 5000, supplying the same antioxidant power as three servings of blueberries or ten servings of raspberries.

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espresso shorts

A taste of Italy Just in time for summer Mediterraneo is distributing Italian-brewed Macario Retro Drinks in bright funky bottles that can only enhance your counter display and fridge.

And at last you can offer your adult customers something a bit more grown-up.

The drinks are the creation of the Macario family from Northern Italy and were inspired by their grandmother who, back in the 1950s, apparently whiled away her summer afternoons creating different flavour combinations with which to entertain her family and friends. The current brews still use traditional ingredients, although the recipes have been revamped.

By today’s palate – that of having everything laden with sugar – Macario drinks might be an acquired taste, but for sharp, clean flavour they would be hard to beat.

We put them to the test with three young adults who admired the packaging right from the start. The general consensus was that they were the type of bottles and cans you might start an empties stack with, in the name of art.

The Gassosa (classic lemon soda) had a mixed reaction. The testers had expected a fizzier brew because that is what lemonade meant to them and they missed that aspect of a lemonade-style drink. But, despite that, they quite liked it and after a few sips didn’t mind that it wasn’t as sweet as what they were used to.

It was likened a bit to a lemon/lime/ bitters recipe. The tasters thought it would be good really chilled and with ice cubes added.

While Nick pursed his lips and shuddered at the bitterness, Amber liked the Tonica (tonic) very much.

Not usually a tonic drinker she thought this brew wasn’t as sharp

as the tonic she was used to. Tyler agreed, it wasn’t as potent as the tonic he normally avoided.

They were keen to taste the Chinotto (Italian Cola) being perhaps overly fond of Coca Cola but they were in for a surprise. The aftertaste was described as weird and Tyler was pushed to describe the flavour stating he didn’t even know what it tasted like. Nick was just plain affronted that it was described as a cola of any kind. However, after a few sips more they decided they actually quite liked it and would buy it now they knew not to expect what they consider a classic cola taste. A further independent taster was brought in and not told the drink was a cola variation.

This tester thought it was sarsaparilla, an old-fashioned drink now seen in New Zealand only rarely, although Australian drink producer Bundaberg offers the flavour.

The Aranciata Rossa (Red Orange) was the all-round favourite. It was thought to be “really good”, “really nice” and, to everyone’s amusement, “peachy keen”.

Interestingly enough, all the flavours were immediately associated with summer and rather formal, perhaps sophisticated, picnics where the cans and bottles would be decanted into a big pitcher filled with ice cubes and served in stylish frosted glasses.

Macario Retro drinks are available from mediterraneo.co.nz. RRP is $4.50 per 250ml bottle and $4.00 per 250ml can.

Gravity coffee The complexity of each bean is important in developing unique coffee blends and this was one of the first things that advertising and design company, Special Group, picked up when they were approached by Gravity to redesign its packaging.

The new bags have a dot pattern on the front, reminiscent of a coffee filter.

The colour of the ‘dot’ in the filter is chosen from a palette that was devised by assigning each bean variety a colour that reflected its flavour profile. Bright highlights and deep overtones of flavour are expressed through 'moire' patterns to visually interpret the complex nuances of each blend. The bolder the patterns, the stronger the overall flavour of the coffee.

The six packages show what the blend will taste like while capturing the story of bean origin and the variety flavours in an innovate design solution.

October 2012 |

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p u g n i s D re s a h t i w is ea sy ! d i a M Fre n ch

Visit our website for recipes and our product range at www.groenz.co.nz Visit our website for recipes and our product range at www.groenz.co.nz calland fOrour mOre infOrmatiOn Visit our website forOr recipes product range at www.groenz.co.nz Or call fOr mOre infOrmatiOn Or call fOr mOre infOrmatiOn

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Recipes courtesy of Stephan Bau mberger Recipes courtesy of Stephan Bau mberger Stephan’s Restaurant & Gasthof Recipes of Stephan Bau mberger Stephan’scourtesy Restaurant & Gasthof Stephan’s Restaurant & Gasthof

Visit our website for recipe ideas and a huge range of our products at www.groenz.co.nz Visit our website for recipe ideas and a huge range of our products at www.groenz.co.nz Visit our website for recipe ideas and a huge range of our products at www.groenz.co.nz

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café culture

Turning the tables on winter Ah, the summer. Sun shining, soft breeze blowing, bees buzzing drowsily among the flowers, birds singing…well, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Last year was a major letdown in that department but this year, should we have the summer we’ve all been pining for, perhaps it’s time to put out a few tables to capture some passing customers.

F

irst you need to contact your local council to make sure what your obligations are in using the footpath as an extension of your business.

Aucklanders may find this a bit frustrating because the region's political transformation into a Super City means at least 152 by-laws have to be brought into line to make one overall ruling, and included in this are the rules about cafés using the footpath for dining.

One Ponsonby café owner has three tables, each with two chairs up against her front window and has never had any comment made to her from Council.

Several shops down, another café had just two tables and four chairs flush with

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its front window. They, too, appeared not to raise the ire of the Council, until the owner put out a trough of flowers, separating the seating from the pedestrians.

“Golly,” marveled Linda. “The flowers were just about still nodding from the movement of the trough being dragged out, when a Council car pulled up. The officer didn’t even stop to look at the plants but strode right into the shop and within minutes, there she was loading the two troughs back into her van. She still had her furniture out, though. That didn’t seem to be a problem. When I asked her later what had happened she said he told her she was contravening some by-law and had to withdraw the planting

boxes immediately. But she was still a bit confused, because he didn’t say anything about the chairs and tables.

“We looked up ‘dining al fresco’ on the Council website, which brought up the Street Trading by-laws under which we are included, but another restaurateur on the strip said that he was advised that was not necessarily correct while Council is trying to standardise all the local by-laws.”

Linda then decided to ring the Council herself to see what she really was and wasn’t allowed to do, but after being passed around a bit, she gave up. We, too, made an effort to ring the Council but, after being put through to the manager in charge of curbside recycling twice – what a nice man – we gave up as well.

Our suggestion, for those in Auckland, is to try ringing Council and if you are having no success, diarise your attempts and then revert to e-mailing or writing a letter. Keep copies of all the correspondence while you’re awaiting a reply so that, should a Council officer appear on your doorstep querying your al fresco arrangement, you will at least be able to show that you are trying to be pro-active about your responsibilities, whatever they may be.

And who knows – sorting out the by-laws regarding pavement dining might be one

cc of the new Council’s easiest tasks and you will get an immediate answer.

Typing ‘chairs on the pavement’ into the Dunedin City Council’s website brings up a wealth of easily understood information and we eventually found the Wellington Council requirements in its Footpath Management Policy. It states you must apply for a licence and the council will decide whether you will be granted one. But the main thrust is, as for every council, whatever you do, you must not impede the pedestrian’s right of way. If your English comprehension is not quite up to reading official documents, you might need to get a friend to help you understand the procedure.

The Ruapehu District Council recently passed the new 2012 Public Places Bylaw that requires all cafés and restaurants using Council footpath space to apply

Your prime responsibility is to make sure the pedestrian’s right of way is never obstructed. for a licence to cover this activity. RDC environmental group manager Margaret Hawthorne said the al fresco dining licence will provide a legally defined area of pavement where cafés and restaurants can extend their business.

“In effect the al fresco dining area of pavement is an official extension of their business,” she said.

“Cafés and restaurants offering al fresco dining will now have a licence to occupy’ the footpath, which will also define their responsibilities and obligations to manage that area.”

Once you have your obligations sorted out you need to think about what tables and chairs you are going to use.

Make sure your outdoor furniture is weather-proof. This might cost more in the beginning but it will pay off in the long run, say the experts. While cheap furniture will crack and rust, weatherproofed items will require little maintenance and will not need to be replaced for a long time.

Make sure the furniture is not so light that it scatters at the first gust of wind, blocking the footpath or blowing into the path of passing traffic. But don’t make it too heavy either, so that customers struggle to pull out a chair and you battle to bring it in at night.

It might be nice to have a planter or an awning or shade cloth but while both look nice, in the long run the customer is just looking for somewhere to sit while they drink their tea or coffee. Of course, if your premises do get full sun, an awning becomes a necessity instead of window dressing.

If you put a water bowl out for canine customers, don’t put it too near the tables as not everyone likes animals around their dining area. But don’t put on the edge of the footpath either. A dog on a lead that

café culture

moves across the footpath to drink, will create an ankle-high trip wire with its leash between its owner and the bowl.

We rang around a few chefs to ask if there were any suggestions regarding food for dining al fresco and apart from one hilarious account of a mortified waitress left standing with two nearly empty plates when a rogue and fierce gust of wind took off with the salad, there was no startling advice. The only instruction we were asked to pass on was, like all things, if you do it, do it well. But that goes hand in hand with running a business, anyway.

GoVino shatter-proof glasses are the ideal al fresco item.

Made from food-safe BPA-free polymer, the glasses are reusable and recyclable. They were originally designed as a trade tool for professional sales people to showcase their wine but it soon became apparent that there was a bigger market for them among consumers.

The glasses are stem-less so they sit firmly and have a thumb indentation so that they are secure to hold. They come as tumblers or flutes and can be etched with your cafés name. A decanter is also available. RRP from $24.95 for a four-pack Hero set. Find a local stockist at govino.com We have a set to give away. Put your name and address in an e-mail to editor@espressomagazine.co.nz with GoVino Giveaway in the subject line.

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Café of the month

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A fur seal on the doorstep N

ext time you’re tapping your foot impatiently waiting for the food service van to come, consider this. Patrice Rogers sometimes has to wait a week for her delivery to arrive, even though she can see it sitting there just out of reach.

Patrice owns the Lakeview Café on Chatham Island and sometimes when the weather is rough the supply boat cannot get into the harbour and there it sits, taunting her, while it waits for the storm to pass and can make a safe landing.

Patrice has had her café for five years.

She started with a pie cart in the island’s largest settlement, Waitangi. After seven years she decided that rather than give the cart the overhaul it needed she would build a new café instead, on her own land about five minutes from town. Her partner, Mike, drew up the plans, a kitset building company in Timaru supplied the building and there it was, a 40-seat licensed café looking out over Lake Huro from the front and backed by the sea. A private path has been hewn by Mike so that customers can access the beach.

Patrice didn’t intend to have a career in cooking, although she liked doing it well enough, but as a child brought up on a farm her allocated chore always seemed to

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be that of feeding everyone. She reckons she would rather have been out driving the tractors and milking the cows but in retrospect she considers herself lucky to have been on kitchen duty, because cooking has held her in good stead ever

a great difference to her meat supply, which has to come from mainland New Zealand.

“The logistics of running a business on the Chathams can make it a little difficult at times. You have to think ahead at least a week, sometimes two or three for ordering

I wish I’d taken a photo of the fish and chips – they were awesome – Guy Warwick since. With that solid training behind her, she taught herself to cook all the food she now sells in her café including cakes and bread and plated meals ranging from fish and chips and hamburgers, to steak and fettuccine. The most popular items with locals varies depending on the mood of the day, from garlic prawns with salad and chips to pizzas and blue cod. Visitors love the blue cod, she says.

She likes to have a wide range of food available and does buy in some product, though, which she freezes and then takes out her daily requirement. The Chatham Island Enterprise Trust is looking into the cost of starting a meat works on the Island at the moment so will be interesting to see if it actually happens, she says. This would make

stock. A lot of the heavy food comes via sea from Napier and Timaru and lighter things on a plane from Wellington.

“A major expense is power, which is three times the cost of that on the mainland. It is a hard commodity to add to the price of the food because there is only so much you can charge for food before the customer baulks at the expense,” says Patrice.

She grows vegetables to supplement the business and makes chutneys and pickles to sell from any leftover vegetables. There is local seafood on the menu as well but there is an agreement on the island that food cannot be harvested from the great lagoon for sale – such as eels, whitebait and flounder – so any seafood is purchased from the local seafood factory and has to come off quota.

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café culture

How to cook a Weka

Credit images: Guy Warwick

Just for interest’s sake, because weka is protected on the mainland so don’t get any ideas, go to kaitime.co.nz to see how to prepare weka for eating by either boiling or barbecuing.

Find ‘meat’ on the left-hand index and go to item #12.

Kaitime chef, Peter Peeti told espresso that weka has a texture similar to chicken but a flavour more gamey, like duck.

“We would also love to sell weka,” she says, “but to use the bird commercially means it would have to be processed in a special building conforming to standard health regulations.”

It’s a good lifestyle, albeit very busy.

The café is open seven days year round from 9am during the week and from 10am Saturday and 11am Sunday. Doors close at 7pm. The café is popular for local functions so there are days she may remain behind after general closing for that.

Sunday afternoons are often slow so Patrice takes the opportunity to close between 2pm-5pm and heads for home to potter in her herb and vegetable garden where she has recently also planted some fruit trees.

Chatham Island has played a big part in Patrice’s life. She first arrived on its shores when she was five, moved again and arrived back when she was about 12.

Her fourth form year saw her move off again for school after a couple of years on correspondence. She didn’t return until she was twenty and has been there ever since. She and Mike, a true Chatham

There are over 60,000 weka on the Chatham Islands, of the variety known as Buff.

They are the descendants of 12 birds who were taken there in 1905, which was a lucky move because the Buff weka became extinct on the mainland around 1920.

The bird was an important food source for Maori and early European settlers although nowadays it is illegal to kill and eat weka anywhere but the Chatham Islands.

Here locals are allowed to kill and consume up to 5,000 each year.

Islander, have two children – Shenelle (20) who lives in Dunedin and Kerry (18) who lives on the island.

But it is time for a lifestyle change and a move back to the mainland for a while and Patrice currently has her café up for sale. It will be hard to leave this beautiful rugged island and her wonderfully positioned café with the lake at its front and sea at its back, but no doubt it won’t be forever and the Chatham Islands will eventually lure her back again.

Lakeview Café North Rd Chatham Islands 8942 Ph: 03 3050132

Situated in the South Pacific Ocean, about 800km east of Christchurch, the Chatham Islands are New Zealand’s most easterly region. An archipelago of 11 islands, only Pitt and Chatham are inhabited, by about 600 people. discoverthechathamislands.co.nz

Ensure you’re ready for a busy summer this year with Mediterranean ■ Versatile Products; use as a dip, spread on sandwiches, pitas, burgers, or use as a sauce or dressing ■ Original Hummus & Tzatziki are authentic style Mediterranean recipes ■ Babaganoush is a Kiwi twist on a Mediterranean favourite in a Hummus format ■ All in strong, sturdy resealable tubs with tamper evident tabs For more details please contact your local Wattie’s Foodservice Sales Representative or freephone

0800 653 050 October 2012 |

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café culture

L-R: Black hat chef Bernd Uber, Dilhan Fernando, Leanne Ayre, Merrill Fernando, Chris Webb and Peter Kuruvita.

High praise for high teas

T

hey really did stop to smell the roses at the Dilmah High Tea challenge in Auckland late last month – an enormous bouquet of the blooms decorated the table presented by the Langham Hotel in Auckland.

Judge Peter Kuruvita of Flying Fish restaurant in Sydney picked the vase up and buried his face in the bouquet with delight, remarking on their beauty. Dilhan Fernando of Dilmah Tea and Black Hat Chef Bernd Uber were equally appreciative of the decision of Langham tea sommelier Benjamin McManus and Chef Volker Marecek to match their tea choices with flowers. The pair ultimately won a gold medal, but not the top prize, which went to junior sous chef Chris Webb and his waiter partner Leanne Ayre from Kermadec Ocean Fresh.

Webb created a menu for a contemporary high tea that included food like smoked lemon and poppy seed macaroons with salmon and goat’s cheese. He carried the macaroons into the presentation room on a plate, smoke swirling under a glass lid. He lifted the lid and the smell of the delicious tea smoked food filled the room.

Webb and Ayre won a trip for two to Sri

Smoked lemon and poppy seed macaroons with salmon and goat’s cheese

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Kermadec’s Leanne Ayre and Chris Webb served up some chocolate truffle and Orange Blossom with Dilmah Smashing Earl Grey

Lanka where they will study tea gastronomy at the Dilmah School of Tea, which also works together with L’Institut Paul Bocuse in France.

Although there was initially just one trip to Sri Lanka up for grabs, Dilmah founder Merrill Fernando was so impressed by the entry from AUT’s School of Hospitality & Tourism – the first time a school had entered the challenge – that he awarded senior lecturer culinary arts John Kelleher and student Nicole Gomes, a trip as well.

The New Zealand event follows similar events in major centres of Australia and the challenge will go throughout the world.

The Dilmah High Tea Challenge is endorsed by the World Association of Chef Societies (WACS).

Tea gastronomy is trending internationally. In Auckland one hotel’s afternoon tea is constantly booked out and another that offered a deal on an online voucher site was surprised to have 2000 teas booked in two hours alone.

M

errill Fernando sits at his breakfast table looking out over Auckland’s early morning harbour, nearly 11,000 kilometres from his breakfast table in Sri Lanka, the Ceylon of his childhood.

There was a time when he didn’t even know there was a New Zealand but his successes might not have been as far-reaching if it hadn’t been for a connection between his island and ours.

The young Master Fernando had a school friend whose family owned a tea plantation. During the school holidays Merrill would stay with his friend, which encouraged an interest in the crop and led to his first employment as a tea taster. The job eventually took him to London to learn about the marketing of tea and it was here the leaf began to wilt. “The big traders had taken control of the tea trade and this is when quality began to disappear. Tea started to be sold by brand name and the steady push towards the commoditisation of the product began,” explains Merrill. “Previously tea was sold by origin and the country of origin was the consumer’s guide to quality. The big traders dispensed with stating the country of origin on packets, instead blending leaves from many different places to produce a tea that could be sold heavily discounted to meet market price expectation.

Up until then, although tea was also grown in great amounts in China and India, it was Ceylonese tea that filled

Merrill Fernando supports Hospice New Zealand by providing Dilmah tea to all hospices throughout the country every year.

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storm with a teacup Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company. – Anon most of the world’s teacups and consumer perception of quality tea was built around tea from Ceylon.”

This saddened Merrill and he hoped that one day he would have his own plantation from which he would package only pure Ceylon tea and restore the honesty and integrity of the product that he felt had been lost.

And it happened, albeit in a small way to start with. In 1962 Merrill and two friends bought a plantation from its British owners who were returning to England to escape the increasing chaos of Ceylon’s politics.

There were just 18 pickers on the plantation and right from the start Merrill paid for their children to attend school – their clothes, shoes and books. The life of a tea picker in those days could be a very sorry affair, with appalling wages and abysmal housing for many. From humble beginnings himself and with parents, particularly his mother, who felt a strong responsibility to those less fortunate than themselves, Merrill was very conscious that with privilege comes responsibility.

Paying for the education of these particular children was the beginning of his MJF Foundation, which for many years was more or less a private thing he kept largely to himself. However, friends eventually encouraged him to speak out about his philanthropic

café culture

It was merely a young boy’s fancy, that one day tea would no longer be just a commodity but tea plantation workers would be; that the commoditisation of tea that made it merely a blend that met the market price would change and that the hard working plantation workers would be recognised for the valuable commodity they were. It is of great credit to Merrill Fernando, that he has realised that dream.

actions not least to encourage others to follow suit.

The purchase of the plantation also meant that Merrill could control the quality of the tea harvested. His desire to supply only pure Ceylon tea was hampered by cost. Pure tea was going to cost more than blended tea and Merrill had to find a market that was prepared to pay for that. He looked first to Australia and then later to New Zealand. “New Zealand only imported pure Ceylon tea prior to commoditisation and although price rather than quality was what I was told the world market demanded, I thought New Zealanders might still appreciate the taste of pure Ceylon tea, which I believed then, and still believe now, is the finest in the world.”

I believe my humble beginnings are my greatest strength.

– Merrill Fernando It was a brave step but it turned out to be a great step because the chance

to buy the good tea that had previously filled their cups appealed to this market. Single origin tea, unblended and unmixed – Kiwis fell behind the brand and its guarantees. “I was so pleased to be right in my choice of New Zealand to be an international market and I owe a lot to this country. It was my Kiwi friends who encouraged me to take the brand even further, beyond New Zealand and Australia and eventually to 100 countries around the world.”

It was and remains hard labour and Merrill still works 15 hour days, but he also credits his continued success to the hard work of his sons, Dilhan and Malik, and his staff. He now owns several plantations and employs 1400 staff, the children of whom are all educated courtesy of the MJF Foundation. Everyone who buys Dilmah tea, supports these children. And 10% of the gross profit of each of Merrill’s companies goes into the Foundation. “I firmly believe we must share our successes with the poor and needy. It is not an option, it is mandatory. Successful businesses should share some of their success to help make this a better world.”

Merrill looks back out at the Waitamata Harbour. “What a beautiful day; how very lucky we are.”

MJF FOUNDATION Late last month, the MJF Foundation, in conjunction with Chef Simon Gault, held a Chari-Tea dinner fundraising event at Gault’s Euro restaurant.

The event included an auction and raised over $50,000. The money will be divided between a scholarship for a trainee New Zealand chef to go to Sri Lanka and the development of a MJF Foundation culinary centre in Sri Lanka, expected to open next March. The centre will help train people who are disadvantaged in some way to get a job in the hospitality sector so that they can look after themselves and their families. Simon Gault, the trainee chef and the Real HighTea Challenge winners will visit the centre.

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Discover ultimate recipes on: www.MONIN.com

Barrista of the month

The quest for good coffee Kirstie Stanway learned a lot about herself in eight days. It began with the astonishing fact that, despite the hundreds of cups of coffee she had brewed and consumed over the years, she apparently didn’t know how to make coffee at all.

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W

hen you’re the junior in any office, you can be sure you’ll get the menial jobs – running errands, photocopying, filing, trying to be all things to all people, and making the coffee.

And yes, your coffee making skills might be weighed up and found wanting but never, EVER, would you imagine you’d be asked to go and get something better….in El Salvador.

Kirstie Stanway’s first day as intern for Auckland radio station MORE FM was always going to be a bit of a minefield. In fact she was prepared to be overly vigilant for more than a few days, as she had heard stories about the tricks and teasing that were a rite of passage for interns. But she wasn’t prepared for the speed at which it happened; she was barely in the door and had just completed her first chore – making coffee for the morning breakfast team. To her mortification, they turned their collective noses up at the brew,

told her she needed to learn to make a better cup and handed her tickets to El Salvador.

That was a “yeah, whatever...” moment for Kirstie until she realised they were serious.

Very serious, it turned out because she had just an hour to get to the airport, board a flight to Los Angeles and then a connecting flight to El Salvador on the far side of the Pacific, the smallest and most densely populated country in South America.

It was hot – very hot – 37° at 9am and 90% humidity. “It was gross,” remembers Kirstie. “I was in my jeans and they were sticking to me.” The heat, after a particularly chilly New Zealand winter was a shock, as were the casual display of machine guns and machetes on the streets of San Salvador, the capital. Even the cafés have armed guards, as well as the parks. People carry machetes as a normal thing; the police are armed and the police dogs are enormous.”

cc

café culture

Baristas make it all look so easy, but it’s not. I have a newfound respect for baristas Luckily it was to get marginally cooler as she was whisked away to the Monte Sion Estate, a Rainforest certified organic plantation two hours from the capital and 1500m above sea level. This is one of the places that Auckland coffee merchant, Gravity, sources its beans. Kirstie arrived in time to help serve lunch to the workers and hand out the weekly food packages that feed the workers and their families. The plantation also runs a children’s literacy programme and provides healthcare for its workers, something that is unavailable to many El Salvadorians. “It was a good thing to do, especially to remember how fortunate I am living here in New Zealand. I couldn’t communicate but I found a smile goes a long way,” she says, smiling again.

At Monte Sion, Gravity’s brew master, Stuart Hargie, taught Kirstie about the beans and the types of beans she needed to select.

“I needed 6000 beans. I actually had to pick 6000 beans! Luckily I had help or I just couldn’t have done it. The altitude was making me feel a bit off, but I got through it.” That night she slept so soundly from tiredness and heat she didn’t even hear the torrential rain that two of her companions said was the loudest they had ever heard.

Her 67kg sack of beans accompanied her to the mill where they were de-shelled and put out to dry on an enormous patio. It would take some time so it would be a different 67kg sack that accompanied Kirstie back to New Zealand. In the meantime, she joined the women at the conveyor belt, while they picked out the beans with defects and discarded them. “The conveyor belt was moving so fast and the women’s hands were just flying. I was still trying to focus on all the beans rattling along and spot just one bad one, while they were going flat out. It was nuts; it made me dizzy!”

With a 67kg sack tucked under her arm – no, not really; it was in the back of the truck – she returned to New Zealand, via villages with beautiful murals on their walls and lampposts and parades and marching bands in their streets; and past those machine guns and machetes that belied the welcome she had received.

Kirstie was exhausted and slept all the way home but there was more work to come.

Back at Gravity HQ with Stuart Hargie, her beans were put through the roasting process and she and Stuart began to blend.

“It takes 60-80 sips of a blend to get it right, making the brews at different temperatures and strength. There was so much more to it than I could ever have imagined. After we decided on the right blend, the coffee was bagged and I had to sign each one. And then I had to learn how to make the coffee – I had to learn to be a barista.

And that was hard. Baristas make it look so easy, but it’s not. I have newfound respect for baristas,” she says wryly.

Just eight days from her first disastrous coffee duty at MORE FM, she had a second attempt at it. There was even a new commercial coffee machine installed in the kitchen. “I was really nervous but I think they were truly amazed at my result. They drink so much coffee, that I reckon they would have said if it wasn’t any good.

Perhaps they were as nervous as I was, that it mightn’t have been any good. But I passed the coffee test. I felt really great. Of course, now everyone at work wants me to make them coffee!”

Discover Ultimate Creativity with MONIN! In 2012 MONIN celebrates its 100th Birthday built upon a legacy of quality, innovation, versatility and service.

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Contact your Stuart Alexander sales representative for more information or call Consumer Services, phone 0800 188 484 Discover ultimate recipes on: www.MONIN.com

October 2012 |

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ff

fast foods

No bull! It’s authentic Turkish food WORDS AND PICTURES: Kathy Ombler

I

f you’re stopping in Bulls in the Manawatu, don’t be put off by the sign at the entrance to Jabies, a tiny donor kebab café that reads: “Full-as-a-Bull”. That’s just the bullishly cute take on the name of the small, State Highway One town. “Const-a-bull” and “Inform-a-bull” are two of many other signs you’ll see.

Jabies Donor Kebabs hit on a simple, fresh winner when it opened in 2001. Simple concept, simple menu; individually-made kebabs with fresh, home-made ingredients – and not too crippling on the budget.

The trouble was, individual making often led to individuals waiting, at peak times. When Tracy and Andy Walker took on the business in 2008 they determined to speed up the process, but not at the expense of the fresh, individually-made ethos.

“Jabies doesn’t really consider itself ‘fast food’

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but rather we focus on delivering wholesome, tasty, Turkish-style food. So we value individual service over being super-fast, however we do try to keep things moving along as quickly as possible by keeping on top of staff training.

Having capable, well-trained staff really does make a difference,” says Tracy Walker.

Good, well-practised systems also help, and then there’s that most endearing feature commented on by many patrons, the personal touch. There’s no flag or rock or any of those cute café creations painted with a number slapped in front of you at the counter. When customers order at Jabies their name is written down, then they are called back to the counter by name, not number, to select which sauces and salad items they’d like added to their kebab.

It does mean everyone in the shop gets to know who you are; somehow it also transforms anonymous travellers into fellow human beings.

That Jabies does deliver individually-made kebabs to several hundred people a day at busy holiday times is a credit to the café’s staff training and systems. Counter orders are also juggled with travellers calling ahead by phone, it helps to speed up service but adds to the challenge, says Tracy. It’s a commonly asked question but neither Tracy nor Andy is Turkish. Tracy has a long history of working in hospitality and gained a love of Turkish food when working at Jabies for the previous owners. When the store went up for sale she jumped at the opportunity.

The menu remains deceptively simple, just five kebab choices; lamb, chicken, felafel, combo or salad, in either pocket, large or king-size pita bread, white or wholemeal, all with hummus, with a choice of up to six salad items and eight sauces. There’s also a plated “Iskinder” option, small or large.

ff

“We believe the main differences in our kebabs are that our pita bread is a bit thicker, we don’t use cheese or mayonnaise and our salads are basic but fresh. This means we are selling an authentic product that is tasty, wholesome and good for you,” says Tracy.

“We make our felafels fresh every day and we fry them to order. Our tabouleh is made in-store, it has become so popular we have started selling it separately, ‘deli-style’.

“We make our own yoghurt and tahini (sesame and garlic) sauces, the others we bring in. The stand-out favourites are our yoghurt, tahini and hot sauces. Customers absolutely love our super-hot chillies, which are New Zealand creations, Kaitaia Fire and Waha Wera.

“What we don’t make in-store we try to source locally. Our vegetables are bulk ordered from either Whanganui or Palmerston North and we get our meat from a Whanganui company called Yallah Distribution.”

Jabies is also true to its Turkish ethos. Turkish Delight is imported from Turkey, although another sweet, baklava, is made on-site. “The baklava is big for people looking for authentic Turkish tastes. We also have a popular range of gluten free desserts that we started because

we found a lot of gluten-intolerant customers were asking for them.”

Coffee and apple tea are also imported from Turkey, and their Turkish coffee is an important point of difference, says Tracy.

“The coffee is a fine-ground strong bean. It’s mixed in equal parts with raw sugar and boiled in a small amount of water. This means the coffee is strong and sweet but it goes down surprisingly well, it’s quite smooth really. You don’t need to be a big coffee drinker to enjoy the taste of a Turkish coffee, there’s really not much else like it.”

Just in case – an espresso machine is on hand to fire up more standard style coffee hits.

All up, the menu stays simple. Wedges and, in winter, pumpkin soup, are also on offer.

Spiced Nuts are a recent innovation. “It’s the kebabs, however, that keep people calling, she adds. “We have waves of customers ordering only lamb, or chicken, although our combo kebabs are most popular. Most customers will add felafel to chicken or lamb.”

Probably more customers prefer to eat-in. “Ever tried to eat a Jabies kebab while driving? I often wonder how people manage,” laughs Tracy.

fast foods

“A busy day is when we have several hundred people through the store; our record was some 200 in about three hours. Luckily all our staff lives in Bulls and are just a phone call away,” she adds.

Tracy says that knowing when to ask for help has probably been the biggest lesson she’s learned at Jabies. “Owning a business can be very rewarding but also very draining.

Also, thinking things through before asking for anything.”

Essentially, though, delivering fresh, wholesome, Turkish food is what it comes down to. Tracy’s advice to others contemplating opening a food business is simple. “Think about what you like to eat, and what is good.

Because when it comes down to it that’s what it’s all about, the food.”

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Hoki Loin

Wild Caught ü grill ü fry ü poach ü bake ü steam

Wild Caught Hoki Loins are ideal for your cafe, restaurant or takeaway.

Our 110-130g portion controlled, IQF free-flow loin fillets can be prepared straight from the freezer. The skinless, boneless fillets have the fat line removed which means less work and zero waste.

They are hand filleted to a uniform size making planning and preparation easy. A versatile product perfect for popular menu options like curry, stir-fry, soup and fish pie.

Order before 30 November 2012 to receive a 10% discount.

Contact Debra Downes (IFL Foodservice) on 021 243 3282 or debra.downes@indfish.co.nz or talk to your fish & seafood distributor.

Wild Caught Hoki Loins 5kg (code 1295F)

INDEPENDENT FISHERIES LTD www.indfish.co.nz

feature:

Choose frozen

When a chill in the air is

good

Frozen foods are an integral part of many café menus.

Sue Fea investigates some of the choices currently available.

W

e may think fresh is best when it comes to products like fish but the experts say that is not always so.

Sanford managing director Eric Barratt says by the time “fresh” fish is distributed and lands on your plate it can be anything from three to 10 days after the catch.

“Seafood frozen at sea is superb quality. If it’s snap frozen at sea it’s

a much greater and higher quality than fresh fish. It’s deep frozen within three to five hours of the catch.”

Snap frozen preserves freshness. Sanford’s huge range of frozen seafood, includes scampi, mussels, squid, oki, snapper, ling, lemon-fish and cod, all popular with cafés. These are all frozen on board the vessels at sea and sold

Wattie’s Frozen Vegetables are picked at their peak and then snap frozen to lock in goodness and ensure the freshest produce is available to you year round.

Products Available; • Peas 2kg & 5kg • Mixed Vege 2kg & 5kg • Cross Cut Beans 5kg • Whole Kernel Corn 2kg • Baby Carrots 2kg • Diced Carrots 5kg

404273_Frozen Veg advert (205x121) final.indd 1

• Whole Beans 2kg • Butter Beans 2kg • Broccoli 2kg • Cauliflower 2kg • Traditional & Asian Stir-fry 2kg

23/12/10 11:14 AM

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feature:

Choose frozen

in catering packs.

The best way to cook a frozen fillet is “straight from frozen”, says Barratt. The quicker you can get the fish frozen and the quicker it can be taken from that frozen state and cooked the better the product. He recommends throwing the frozen fillet straight in the pan or oven, or thawing seafood in some salted cold water for a few minutes first.

Sealord is also offering a new Bluenose product with linseed, sunflower and pumpkin seed as part of its Seasonal Catch range, which cleaned up Best New Food and Beverage for New Zealand at the Fine Food Awards Sealord’s Simon Evans says this product can be oven baked for the more weight conscious customer, or deep fried, and is proving popular with cafés.

“This is the Rolls Royce of crumbed fish. A lot of fish is in small triangular portions and battered, but this is a premium hand cut fillet. It’s a classy frozen crumbed fish.”

Sealord even developed its own crumb at the company’s joint venture bakery in Nelson.

“This is not your average café crumbed

fish,” says Evans “and it sits comfortably in any $20 to $30 main dish.”

Frozen products are perfect for cafés operating on a small budget as fresh fish is costly and needs to be cooked quickly.

Evans says that there’s been a strong trend towards diners looking for finger food, such as crumbed or battered

Camembert cheese, served with plum or cranberry sauce.

Owner Kelvin Clout says their specialty rolls of frozen pastry, including vegetarian and wholemeal pastries, are also a hit.

“The main thing is to thaw the pastry roll a couple of hours before use. The great thing is with the rolls you can put half back in the freezer, it will refreeze fine.”

Freezer space can be an issue for smaller café operators and while frozen food distributors may add an extra layer of cost, this beats paying for larger premises.

New innovations include some meaty pork curry and rice and savoury mince and vege spring rolls, as well as large samosas that can be oven baked, and golden crumb vegetarian patties.

Summer is the time to get weight and health conscious and Giannis food service manager Leanne Addington says they always see a big demand for their frozen pita, pocket, flat breads, wraps and tortillas.

“Pop them straight on the grill plate with a little olive oil and sea salt.”

The souvlaki/kebab bread is also great for health-conscious takeaway options.

It should always be oiled first and can be oiled frozen or thawed first.

Frozen pizza bases are also in hot demand for summer and like the other products can go straight on the grill plate, pizza or Panini oven.

Giannis new 7.5inch pita bread thins slice well into segments served with tapenade and spreads.

Te Papa executive chef Ber nd Lippmann says fresh is best but deep fried chips are his café’s most popular frozen product.

He has located a great supplier of local produce, 24-Carrot Dream Produce, in Wellington, where he also sources great crinkle-cut kid’s chips. “They’re one of the few companies left that don’t say ‘no, we don’t have that’. There’s no ‘no’; whatever you need, they’ll source it for you.”

He prefers fresh berries, but frozen is a great substitute for coulis and smoothies

These days you can’t do without frozen products or a freezer.

There’s not one commercial kitchen in New Zealand that doesn’t use frozen product in one way or another.

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Bernd Lippmann – Te Papa

prawns, Calamari Chips and Hoki Bites.

There are some other great frozen food options available to busy café operators.

Fleur Foods' two biggest sellers are sweetcorn nuggets – delicious deep-fried on a platter with chutney, sour cream or sweet chilli sauce - and crumbed

feature:

and if he buys in too much fresh fish he will blast freeze any oversupply to use later for fish pie or fish and chips.

Denheath Desserts' owner Donald Templeton says when it comes to freezing desserts the secret is the care and quality of the freezing process. This prevents ice crystals from forming. His company’s frozen custard squares are renowned nationally and along with a range of delicious cheesecakes, Denheath’s profiteroles and E-Square range have a 9-month freezer life. “You can just thaw what you need as you need it, saving money,” he says.

The Timaru-based company also produces a children’s portion size in the custard square and kids cup cakes.

He’s proud of the E-Square éclairs, believed to be a world first innovation in forming a choux pastry profiterole into a square shape.

The custard slice is by far the most popular with Kiwi cafés and Templeton says it can be eaten guilt free: “Everyone has the assumption

that we add sugar and sweeteners.

There is only 18.3 percent fat in our custard square.”

Another cost- and labour-effective product is Independent Fisheries’ Wild Caught Hoki.

The portions – between 110gm and 130gm – are not shatter-packed, which means no extra mess in the kitchen.

They can be cooked frozen, straight from the freezer, which makes them ideal for busy cafés, as there is no waiting about for thawing. Being able to be cooked from frozen also means you can use just what you need and not thaw an amount and hope it will get used. There is a 5kg carton, which is a good size to keep in the freezer.

While you’re investigating Independent Fisheries, take a look at some of its other products, which include whiting fillets, fish fillets and crumbed products, such as squid rings. Also keep an eye out for brand new products soon to be available – smoked fish cakes and Peri Peri crumbed whiting. indfish.co.nz

Choose frozen

Good refrigeration is not only vital to maintain health standards but in a busy café with cold air leaving every time the fridge door is opened, operators need to choose a good purpose-built commercial option. Any defrosting must be done in a fridge at below 4degC. Don’t leave product on the counter to thaw. Frozen fish should always be cooked as per the manufacturer’s instructions.

Take a big biTe Of New Zealand The Original gourmet Custard Square Uniquely different, our fluffy high rise melt-in-yourmouth rich creamy vanilla custard filled squares are complemented with golden flaky pastry and yummy icing topped with curly-white shredded coconut.

Denheath desserts are delivered frozen and will stay fresh for 4 days once thawed.

SA

NT P O

d

INT

Order direct: 0800 336 432 www.denheath.co.nz

PLEA

Your customers will love it!

N

e w Ze al an

October 2012 |

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feature:

Small spaces

Turning small into

big at heart

When Cheryl Yates bought an abandoned hair salon with the aim of turning it into a cafĂŠ her excitement was tinged with some anxiety. Not that she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t confident she could make a success of it; but she did have some concern about the lack of space.

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| October 2012

feature:

Don’t let size deter you, advises Cheryl. Turn a small space into something quirky and furnish it with things that fit the space, rather than making the space fit the furnishings.

She reckons quirky does well in New Zealand and the chain coffee houses don’t really fit the Kiwi way. Be a little bit different and have an edge. The small and difficult size can be an advantage – Castor Sugar is already a talking point for its funny layout…as well as the food, of course!

I

t was just a little L-shaped shop, at the end of an L-shaped block that had been in the Auckland suburb of Castor Bay for decades, since the road was gravel and before the Harbour Bridge was opened. It had a little ante room through an arched doorway, a funny little two-sink space tucked around the corner of the L, a “vile” toilet facility, an odd little windowless room out the back and an overgrown courtyard of just 8mx2.5m.

Now, as Castor Sugar, it has a children’s playroom through the arch, a kitchen around the sinks, a tidy bathroom and a weeded outdoor area strung with flags and furnished with cane furniture.

The first task was to sort out the toilets. The plumber laughed – the system was so old he had never even seen one before and thought the unit should be sent to a museum. Cheryl got around the lack of space by sourcing a toilet that had a washbasin incorporated into the cistern. The grey water from hand washing collects in the cistern, which becomes the water used for flushing.

The floors proved to be of good oldfashioned wood and polished up nicely.

A coat of white paint spruced up the walls and the space was transformed.

The playroom though not obviously revenue-building could well prove to be, by encouraging parents to come in for a cup of coffee they can enjoy in peace while the children are entertained.

What became the kitchen was built around the existing basins and all that

was needed was a bench and an oven.

Cheryl did just what was urgently needed and left the rest to evolve. And it did – week by week it evolved and the café found its own groove. The only real unfinished business is that funny little windowless room, that actually has a window of sorts, a boarded up hatch through to the counter. This space, too, Cheryl is confident will evolve in its own time – perhaps into a quiet retreat with a couple of easy chairs and a few good magazines. She also hopes to have a pizza oven in the courtyard before the summer.

From the start Cheryl decided on a country kitchen theme, which would allow her to go for a quirky style and not be constrained by something more formal and streamlined. She aimed for a comfortable place – a home from home.

The first lot of furniture, rescued from an icecream parlour that was closing down a two-hour drive away, was a soft green, so once that was installed Cheryl just kept looking for items that were predominately green and white.

All up Castor Sugar seats 10 customers at tables on the footpath, 16 inside and eight to 10 in the courtyard.

The café is a couple of minutes’ walk from Castor Bay beach, a place popular with young families for its shallow shore. At weekends Cheryl can already see how busy it will be in the summer, with her all-day breakfasts already proving popular.

2/82 Beach Rd, Castor Bay – Auckland

Small spaces

TIPS FOR SMALL SPACES

If your budget is small, it might be a good idea to spend what you have on a large mirror, a can of white paint and a couple of large, leafy green plants. Never underestimate how effective pot plants are as a decoration. But don’t forget to water them, because there is nothing sadder or scruffier than a wilting or dead plant.

A large mirror will instantly make space. Better still, get some mirror tiles and cover as much of the wall as possible. If the space is outside, get a bathroom mirror from somewhere like Mitre 10 or Bunnings, which are treated to withstand the damp.

Paint the walls white. White paint brightens a small space and instantly edits crooked or damaged walls and smoothes out imperfections. You can even paint the floor white. Use the same shade of white for floor, ceiling and walls because the reflected light will give each surface a different hue. If your space is outside, you can still spread some white paint around on the wall and/or fencing. Keep an eye out for a shade cloth, which are much cheaper than they used to be. If you put up a shade cloth, take care it doesn’t collect rain water and leaves.

If your small space is outside, it is easy to furnish it cheaply. People have different expectations of the outdoors and if you furnish it with mismatched tables and chairs, nobody will care. If you can’t afford a patio-type heater, provide rugs and hot-water bottles. This was a trend that began a few years ago and seems to have remained. Some cafés even have special shelving to store rugs and bottles. An old chest of drawers would do for this.

Paint it white, perhaps put some new drawer handles on it to jazz it up and slap a pot plant on top. Be careful not to use boiling water in the hot water bottles and always check the cap is firmly screwed in.

October 2012 |

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27

pp

Pasta of the month

There are actually 310 specific forms of pasta in Italy, known variably by over 1300 names according to a recent survey.

Keeping a good

thing going

One of the first times television was used to stage an April Fool’s Day joke is believed to be in 1957 when the BBC ran a news item about a bumper crop of spaghetti and showed an Italian family picking spaghetti from trees. See an archive of the news item here: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=27ugSKW4-QQ

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| October 2012

I

t’s only a small room out the back of Delicious on Auckland’s Richmond Road, but aficionados reckon some of the finest pasta in the city comes out of it.

Such is its reputation that new owners Greg Williams and Anthea Potter have made the undoubtedly smart move to leave the menu just as it was under previous long-time owner as well as keeping said owner's son, Oliver Chunn.

The bistro has been trading for ten years and Greg and Anthea have had it just a few months but already Greg knows that pasta is the absolute backbone of Delicious. “We will always have a pasta content; always, always,” he states.

Seven to eight balls of fresh pasta dough is made around 7am every day. Greg has never previously worked at a restaurant where they made their own pasta, although he had made it often at home. Now, under the guidance of Oliver, who has been making fresh pasta for four years, Greg is on a learning curve.

The hardest part, he says, is getting consistency of product. If it’s not right, he has to start over, sometimes just re-kneading the dough and sometimes starting right from scratch again. “It’s important for us to have quality and if we have to redo, we have to redo,” Greg asserts.

The quality of the dough depends not

pp

pizza pasta

GLOSSARY Ravioli - Square filled pasta Pappardelle - Thick flat ribbon Tagliatelle - Thin flat ribbon Tortellini - Ring-shaped, filled pasta Provolone - Soft smoked cheese

only on a deft touch but also on the eggs, flour and even the ambient temperature of any particular day. Even though the recipe is always the same, it is not a guarantee that the batch will not fail for any of these reasons.

“It’s worth it, of course,” says Greg. “Fresh pasta has a depth of flavour that is just not there in bought supermarket pastas.”

He uses pasteurized eggs, from Zeagold in Takanini (Auckland), a product he has used before and that was already in use at Delicious when he took over the reins.

Pasteurized eggs are superior, particularly the yolk, he says, and you can really tell the difference both in the making of the pasta and the subsequent taste.

Currently he and Oliver make pappardelle, tagliatelle, ravioli and tortellini, but, Greg shrugs, who knows? “We are always open to new types of pasta.” He is just as amenable to flavoured pasta.

Although he currently makes plain dough, he is not averse to the idea of introducing flavours and colours using such ingredients as squid ink or spinach. “Definitely!”

Greg has cooked Italian for nearly eight years and says it is his passion although he has yet to visit Italy. “It appeals to me, the simplicity of it, the taste of it. And you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like Italian cuisine, or at least some aspects of it.”

The biggest seller off the Delicious menu is the pappardelle with braised lamb shanks with tomato and rosemary. Ravioli of beetroot and provolone is also popular and Greg says even those who think they don’t like beetroot, will enjoy this dish. The menu’s other ravioli dish is zucchini, basil and lemon. Both dishes also use sage butter.

“New Zealanders definitely understand traditional Italian pasta,” says Greg, “and Delicious has a really good following. It’s been in the Metro (Magazine) Top 50 for the past four years and it is definitely my goal to keep it there.”

Delicious – 472 Richmond Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland. delicious.co.nz October 2012 |

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Pizza of the month

Re-inventing the (dough) wheel N

ew York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Anna Quindlen, said that ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.

Fellow New Yorker, new New Zealander and chef, John Palino would have agreed because the idea he tossed around was pizza dough, frozen pizza dough to be exact.

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pp His idea was to take the time-consuming element out of making a pizza, that of kneading and pressing, spinning and tossing the base before you even get to think about what to top it with. There are those, of course, who love that part of pizza-making. They go into a Zen-like state, mesmerized by the task – a sort of official time out.

But anyway, John thought there were better ways of using time and money and came up with his Frozen Pizza Dough concept.

Of course there were already ready-made pizza bases available for both commercial and domestic use and although they did the job well enough, they didn’t taste like a base of freshly cooked dough.

It took a bit of trial and error, checking out existing frozen doughs on visits back home to the States and learning the interesting and sometimes frustrating ways ingredients react or change when frozen, but eventually he got it right. So right, in fact, that a Neapolitan friend gave it the thumbs up. And as many people consider Naples to be the birthplace of today’s pizza – it was in this city anyway, that cheese was first thought to have been added to the base – this particular thumbs up was as good a certification as any that John had got it right.

Palino’s Pizza Dough is made from high grade flour, which is ideal for this type of dough because it is finely ground and has a lower gluten content than most flours.

Gluten, advises John, is the natural protein that remains when starch is removed from wheat grains. It creates the elasticity you feel when you bite into a crunchy loaf of bread.

pizza pasta

The lower the protein content of the flour, the lower the gluten, and the lower the gluten, the less elasticity there will be in the dough.

The high grade flour gives the dough just enough, but not too much, stretch at 12.5% gluten, says John.

The frozen dough can be thawed in a plastic bag or bowl after being rubbed lightly with oil and then covered with cling film or a clean towel. It can be thawed over several hours in the fridge, or in about two hours on the bench. It can also be hurried along by microwaving each side for 30 on seconds on ‘defrost’ and then placed in a warm area until it has doubled in size.

When the dough has risen, it needs to be lightly floured, then shaped with your hands and stretched to size. If you need a thinner pizza, use a rolling pin. Then put the dough on a lightly oiled oven pan, add the sauce, cheese and desired topping. Bake in pre-heated oven at 250°-270°C for about 10-14 minutes until it is golden brown.

The dough can also be used to make calzones, Stromboli and even bagels.

When John moved to New Zealand one of his projects was the founding of Sal Rose, an Italian country-themed restaurant in Auckland’s Mt Albert. It’s now in someone else’s capable hands but its pizza legacy lives on with an impressive range to choose from. That’s a lot of dough and there’s no doubt John could have surely done with some of frozen pizza dough then. Oh well, quando la pera e matura, casca da se; that’s the Italian equivalent of all things happen in their own good time.

John’s pizza topping • 1 can (400gms) crushed tomato – preferably Italian-style • Several leaves of fresh basil or a tablespoon of dried basil • 1 tsp sea salt to taste • Fresh ground black pepper to taste • 2 cloves garlic (if wanted) Run the tomatoes though a food mill, crush by hand or put in blender.

If you’re using the garlic, peel and crush both cloves then add to tomatoes.

Wash basil thoroughly and tear the leaves into small pieces – or cut with scissors – and add to the tomato.

Put on pizza base. There is no need to cook the sauce, it will cook on the pizza.

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Marketevents

2012 –Served–

All Year October

November

FEAST Gisborne

www.feastgisborne.co.nz "it" Bay of Islands Food & Wine Festival Paihia

20

www.paihianz.co.nz/it–festival/ The Great West Coast Whitebait Festival Christchurch

whitebaitfest.co.nz Wanaka Wine & Food Fest Wanaka

wanakeafest.co.nz

21-25

SIAL 2012, Paris, The World's 'Number 1 Food Exhibition' www.sialparis.com

24 & 31

Mt Eden Village Foodie Walking Tour

25

Auckland

eventfinder.co.nz Christmas Country Fete Culverden

4

Craft Beer Sunday Taupo

11-10

Food & Wine Expo Auckand

14 24

eventfinder.co.nz

www.foodandwineexpo.co.nz FGC Annual Conference 2012 Melbourne

fgc.org.nz/events Air New Zealand Wine Awards Wellington

airnzwineawards.co.nz

2013

Marketevents

May

7-9

www.thefete.co.nz

18-21

SIAL CHINA 2013 Shanghai

National Restaurant Association (United States) Show 2013 Chicago

www.restaurant.org

If you have an event you’d like us to highlight just email

editor@espressomagazine.co.nz

with the details.

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