Blessed are the cheese-makers
I managed to get to the Southland farmers market in Invercargill on a recent Sunday.
Held at Southland Boys High School, it's not yet as big as the Otago market in Dunedin and doesn't have the range of fruit and vegetables we have - although one or two of the Central Otago stalls go to both - but there is good meat and some fish, and a lot of baking and preserves.
One stall that caught my eye, because we don't have anything like it in Dunedin, was Happy Valley Dairies with its own milk, cream, yoghurt, butter and Gouda cheeses.
Frans and Jeanie Venekamp (above) came to New Zealand from the Netherlands about 17 years ago because, without EU regulations, it was possible to set up their own dairy herd here and land was cheaper.
They moved to Tuatapere about five years ago, building up their herd of hardy montbeliarde cows, a French breed developed for cheese-making.
For the past year the Venekamps have been processing and selling their own milk.
"There's nothing particularly special about what we do but we do it the way it used to be without additives or overprocessing," says Frans.
The milk is pasteurised, of course, but not homogenised; their yoghurt has no stabilisers or thickeners so it is runny, except for the drained Greek-style yoghurt.
There are traditional Gouda-style cheeses, mature and young and with and without cumin.
They also make their own wonderful, cultured and lightly salted butter, a real treat after supermarket butter.
Contact them: Ph (03) 226-6942; email happyvalleydairies@woosh.co.nz http://homepages.woosh.co.nz/happyvalleydairies/index.html
Healthy website
If you are familiar with the informative and helpful magazine New Zealand Healthy Food Guide, you'll be interested to check out its website at www.healthyfood.co.nz.
It contains recipes, articles, hints and information, and it's backed by an editorial advisory team that includes some leading academics and nutritionists, including Prof Jim Mann and Prof Christine Thomson, from the University of Otago.
Bell goes green
Matt Greenwood, New Zealand's only master tea taster, has come up with another new product for Bell Tea.
After adding Pure Ceylon and Kenya Bold to the classic tea, he has now come up with Zesty Green tea, which also comes in a citrus flavour.
Green tea is said to have more antioxidants than black teas, and certainly has different flavours.
It's best made with water just off the boil, allowed to infuse for three minutes and served without milk.
Ribena berries well travelled
After GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Ribena, was fined $217,500 last year after admitting it mislead customers about the vitamin C content of the blackcurrant drink, it has relaunched its products as RTDs (ready-to-drink) with new packaging.
It claims they are a "rich source of vitamin C" and the nutrition information panels say they contains 8mg per 100ml. Fresh blackcurrants usually contain about 200mg per 100g.
It claims every serve (250ml) provides 50% of an adult's recommended dietary intake of vitamin C.
Government agencies from the UK, Canada and US and the WHO recommend between 40 and 95mg a day. However, some other authoriites recommend higher intakes. Fresh fruits and vegetables are major sources of vitamin C.
I was sent samples of three new Ribena products which I found overly sweet: a 1-litre box fruit drink made in Australia, a 250ml bottle sparkling fruit drink made in Malaysia (about $1.30), and a 500ml bottle of low calorie fruit drink made in China.
All were made from concentrate made from blackcurrants grown in New Zealand.
It's certainly a multinational product - but why do our blackcurrants have to go to three different countries to be turned into drinks?
When good water goes bad
Have you ever been poured a glass of water in a restaurant and thought it tasted strange? I sometimes find restaurant water has a sort of plasticy taste, and decided it is probably because it has been sitting too long in an open jug.
If you leave a glass of water by your bed for a couple of days it sometimes develops the same taste.
