Struan Farm

Thank Heavens for The Fat Pigeon!

We're thankful here at Struan Farm for Piopio's award winning cafe, The Fat Pigeon, for many reasons. Most people in the know would agree that the cafe literally saved our provincial King Country village many years ago now. 

During 2006 it was publicised in the region that Piopio was "dying." It had become increasingly difficult to recruit new staff from outside the district to the town's school and shops, for farm managers and workers, mechanics and vets.

Something about the stigma of being labeled as "dying" galvanised the community to take action. This is a rural area with a rich Maori history, where families have farmed for several generations and still do. Public meetings were held, consultants retained, and working groups established to generate ideas to turn the situation around. A public survey confirmed that three essential services were desired: doctor, postal service, and last but not least: a good cafe. 

Piopio is situated on the main road south, SH3, midway between Hamilton to the north and New Plymouth to the south. Convincing some of that traffic to stop was critical to Piopio's survival and commercial success.

Four families got together and established a privately funded community development company. The group soon grew to sixteen. Research on a cafe business followed with the assistance of Craig McFarlane (New Plymouth based Ozone Coffee). It was clear from the start that there was only one person to run Piopio's cafe: local Melanie Simpson.

As you might expect, there were fits and starts, but to make a long blog post short, The Fat Pigeon Cafe was built next to the public toilets and Kara Park in April 2009, and opened in June. The Piopio College carpentry class constructed a fence and bridge across to the park. Investors cracked in on the landscaping. The builder spoke to local school groups. Excitement was in the air, and everyone in Piopio felt part of it.

The Fat Pigeon Cafe opened its doors during the global financial crisis, in the middle of winter. The cafe succeeded, undaunted. It turns out there was real demand for a cafe in our country town on the main road. Especially one serving amazing, delicious food and excellent Ozone coffee. Word of mouth spread, awards were won. The line of customers is often out the door. 

More good news: in 2011 Peter Jackson's Hobbit crew invaded Piopio, filming a segment of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" at Denize Bluffs in the Mangaotaki Valley (now open as Hairy Feet Waitomo Film location).

So Piopio is now thriving. We have visitors from New Zealand and overseas flocking to our town (excuse the sheep analogy), the country town "saved" by our cafe. This week we have both Japanese and Australian guests staying here at Struan Farm.

But while these visitors are important to commercial sustainability, The Fat Pigeon wouldn't be the success it is without continued community support. Locals frequent the cafe and book catering for important occasions throughout the year.  Here at Struan Farm we use the catering team for events held at the farm, and direct our farmstay guests into town to the cafe and its sister Night Owl Restaurant for dinner.

I am personally thankful to have the Fat Pigeon for two reasons in particular. In winter when John is up north on business and the rain is going sideways, I am happy to have a local cafe for friendly faces and an excellent coffee (and perhaps breakfast or a baked treat) when I make the weekly trip into the dump.

What's prompted this post today is that at this time of the year, The Fat Pigeon is happy to take my garden surplus as/if/when.  As you might suspect, at the moment that's TOMATOES. 

 

I'll trade tomatoes for coffee vouchers any time! 

A Special Thank You

We get some lovely thank you's and notes left in our farmstay guest books in the Homestead and Cottage here at Struan Farm.

The Homestead can be a bit hit and miss, guests don't always take time to leave us lengthy notes, but the Cottage guests tend to go on and on about what they've enjoyed. I always check the books when I do my clean up after people leave. It energises both John and me to hear what people have enjoyed most about Struan Farm, since that's really why we do this.

This thank you left for us this week wins the creativity prize (so far):

 

A lovely origami crane, crafted out of one of our paper napkins! It was left by young honeymooners from Japan who stayed in the Homestead. Their guide, Shinsuke Igarashi, spent the night at Jim's Hut, cooking a BBQ dinner for everyone down at the river. They were in the area to visit Hairy Feet Waitomo and Waitomo Caves, before heading to Matamata and Hobbiton for the day and night tours.

For Japanese the crane is a bird of happiness, a symbol of good fortune and longevity. Love it!

Too Many Toms, Almost

The tomatoes are coming at me here at Struan Farm. I confess, I'm struggling to keep up. In case you're faced with the same situation, here are a few ideas, in addition to bruschetta and tomato soup as previously reported.

And yes, I know about passata, relish, kasundi, slow roasting (done that too), etc. etc. There are only so many hours in the day, and you can't spend them all in a hot kitchen on hot summer days! I recently rediscovered a cookbook from my early days, "The Silver Palate Cookbook." It may still be one of the best selling cookbooks of all time in the USA. I used it a lot, and recently purchased a new copy from Fishpond. Of course the first and second dishes I've made from it involve tomatoes, there's an entire chapter with ideas for using them.

The first was "Linguine with tomato & basil." 

It really doesn't matter what type of pasta you use, this was fettuccine. I also used a small wheel of probiotic camembert, less that half of the rich cheese the recipe calls for. It wasn't as rich (thankfully from my vantage point) but definitely had enough of the taste of the cheese, which melts once combined with the hot pasta. 

The second dish I made was "Spinach-and-ricotta-stuffed tomatoes." The Silver Palate is a big fan of stuffed tomatoes, and with the amount we've got on hand I think they may have a convert on that score. They suggest stuffing them with tuna fish, egg or chicken salads, rice, etc. These were delicious, with plenty leftover for lunch the next day.

A final idea for you, at least for today, is gazpacho: cold tomato soup. I make the "South Beach diet" version, which is healthy and tasty. I throw everything into the food processor, and don't worry about leaving it overnight for the flavours to mix together, a few hours is good enough. It will keep at least a day. I used to take it to work in a screw top jar. Served in a glass it's refreshing for a light lunch or as a starter for dinner.

For my next act I'm contemplating a tomato tart of some sort, but I'll need to whip up just a few batches of tomato soup before that! 

The (Pending) Adventures of Little Tinker and Little Leroy

Our littlest gnomes at Struan Farm, Little Tinker and Little Leroy, belong to our littlest grandchildren. But sad to say they live far away and don't visit all that often to play with their gnomes.

Little Tinker and Little Leroy confessed to me that they were a bit lonely and bored, in need of an adventure. They'd been into the tawa grove to see the big gnomes, but they just laughed at them and kept working away, chopping wood (or hands firmly in pockets in the case of Stuffy and Red).

Could I possibly take them to see a few special places around Struan Farm? Pretty please, oh pretty please? I'd need to convince John to play along, since I wouldn't be able to cart two gnomes, however small, around on my own. I decided our first field trip would be down to the river, and if we had time, the cave!

John's first question was why these pesky little gnomes couldn't walk around by themselves, since the thought of escorting them around was making him grumpy. (Let's just say that sometimes Karen's creative inspirations don't exactly enthuse him.)

Little Tinker and Little Leroy decided to help convince John by helping him mow the lawn. They got up early and pretty much finished the garden area at the house on their own.

They even wore proper ear muffs, they're very concerned about health & safety. John has been convinced as a result, so our first adventure down to the river will happen shortly. Little Tinker and Little Leroy can't wait and are standing by!

Hopping To It

The hops I planted to grow over the pergola at the orchard entrance here at Struan Farm are doing well. Really well. Early on I was a bit worried, they took some time to get going, but they're vigorous growers as advertised. As previously confessed to you, we're not the best at training anything that needs lots of encouragement and frequent oversight. I'm hoping these will flower in autumn before going dormant in winter.

The grapes, on the other hand, are a different story. Two of the plants we planted in the main pergola in the house gardens died, all four were set upon by rabbits. I put out garlic, chile powder and chicken wire to protect them as much as possible. At the moment one plant is doing reasonably well and one is struggling. I'm about to pull the struggler out and leave the survivor to grow up one corner. John and I have decided that we like the structure of this pergola as a visual element in the garden, so now aren't sure we want or need it covered by plants. Plus it will be much easier to paint without plants all over. (Despite what you may think, we do consider the maintenance work involved longer term in all this, don't let ourselves get totally carried away.) 

Perhaps the grapes sensed our indecision and reacted accordingly. Or they needed more love and attention than I have been able to give them.  I guess I hadn't realised grapes would be this sensitive either way, I thought they were hardy and just got on with it. Who knew they were snowflakes? 

Memories & Emotional Baggage

I've been musing a bit about food likes and dislikes after reading a Facebook post questioning who was a picky eater. It included a list of mostly everyday foods (okay, except maybe for kombucha), and asked readers to add up those on the list that they didn't like, giving themselves one point for each. The list included foods like avocado, olives, tofu, mushrooms. I couldn't tick any except perhaps for kombucha, which I haven't tried. But to my surprise many people ticked off quite a few.

Disclaimer upfront: children under ten are excluded from this discussion. They're in their own universe these days. As someone who grew up in the days when you sat at the dinner table until you cleaned your plate, or went to bed hungry, I have views on the current situation. I attribute it to a school of parenting, and the fact that kids today know who the bosses are: them. I used to prepare beautiful "adult" meals in an effort to expose grandchildren to new foods, only to have meals end in heartache (mine). I now make things that I know they'll eat, with an occasional random victory. We have grandchildren who won't eat fresh tomatoes or lettuce, for example. I let that wash over me, with just a few cleansing breaths. John has enforced a rule that what goes on the plate must get eaten or no dessert. Palates can and will evolve with age and life experience. 

At our house John won't eat goat cheese. Even the smell of it evokes shudders and memories of smelly billy goats who must have terrorised him as a child. I tested a salad with chevre once that was a complete write-off. I've managed to coax him out of his aversion to silverbeet/swiss chard, which stemmed from finding a grass grub in it once a long, long time ago. I've promised we will always wash our greens thoroughly to remove wildlife, and have stuck to that promise (mostly).

As for me it's certain types of offal. My mother used to cook and eat calf liver and kidneys. No one else in my family would touch them. I remember the stench in the kitchen from the kidneys boiling away on the stove in particular. I do eat pate, foie gras, and chicken livers. A few years ago I went out with friends Laura and John to their favourite tapas bar in California, where we sampled a smoked tongue dish that John raved about. I'm embarrassed to say that I popped some in my mouth, gagged, and promptly spit it out in my napkin. Not terribly ladylike, but I simply couldn't swallow it down. Must have been a tongue thing.

Like most things, we can probably blame all this on our mothers; on what and how they cooked. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, we're all a product of or a reaction to our mothers. I'm amazed I love vegetables given the mushy, overcooked tinned and frozen veggies I grew up on. I only discovered fresh broccoli when I went off to college. Brussels sprouts, the most universally disliked vegetable, are largely so because everyone's mothers served them boiled and mushy in the day.  It takes a brave soul, or another generation, to learn that they taste amazing when roasted, caramelised and nutty.

Common thinking is that we eat with our senses: sight, smell, and taste in particular. But we also bring along to the table our memories and emotional baggage.

 

Prettied Up & Beautiful

The shallots and garlic I harvested from the veggie garden before Christmas here at Struan Farm have been drying out in the garage on my potting table for the past month.

Once dry they get trimmed and tidied up for storage and use during the year. The tops are cut off and the roots trimmed. The large white shallots have a way to go, they're still somewhat green, but the red shallots and garlic had completely dried over the month and were ready for haircuts. A few days ago I spent some time at the potting table with Clifford by my side, scissors in hand, cleaning them up.

They've prettied up well, don't you think?

The red shallots in particular look beautiful. Trust I'm allowed to call onions and garlic "prettied up" and "beautiful."