Letters to Ann

Dear Ann,

Charley & I well were well ready to get back into marketing again after the holiday break. The Christmas Pudding season was over & it was back to relish again. With one of our best markets first on the list we needed to go shopping.

Up until now I had shopped at our local super market for ingredients, but with the New Year we thought we should get into our project with zest & save money by patronising the Harris Farm Market that was only about fifteen minutes away at Glendale.

That should sound familiar to you with Glendale in LA very close to you too. Both venues are large shopping outlets & not favourites of mine as they are spread out & not under cover like shopping malls. Driving to Glendale here is not on my list of favourite things to do as it is outside of my comfort zone. However, now I have a co- pilot I can sit back & let Charley drive.

So we tootled off to Harris Farm to purchase all the ingredients for our relish. When we arrived Charley picked up a small carry basket that was very smartly replaced with a very large shopping trolley when I mentioned that first up we needed fourteen kilo (30 lb.) of tomatoes & ten kilo of onions, not to mention several bunches of celery & many capsicums.

It was as funny as a circus as everything was so cheap with other bargains too good to pass by that had nothing to do with our relish, but just for ourselves. This comprised of a very large tray of huge mangos, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, smoked salmon (a favourite of us both) & lastly, a mammoth tray laden with about twenty punnets of strawberries for a mere $7: too good to miss!

I took the latter to my friend, Richard – father of Rachelle, the owner of Micheles Patisserie – who loves making jams & chutneys etc. Now I have enough strawberry jam to feed an army & giving it to all of my friends. I promised Richard a Christmas Pudding for what they call here “Christmas in July.”

Plus, Charley & I indulged in smoked salmon for the next couple of weeks, living like kings!

I like pushing a trolley as it gives me a bit of stability, but the trolley that day was unpushable. Well by me anyway as things were sliding off the top.

It was loaded to the hilt & even Charley had a job directing that trolley to the car. We were both amazed at what Harris Farm had to offer. I think we changed the rule of five veges per day to five fruits daily!

I hadn’t been to Harris Farm Markets for years & was truly amazed at how it has grown & developed. We both remarked that, when Philip & Greg come back here for a visit, this place it’s a must for them, as it is so interesting. Greg would love it as he is quite a chef & does love to cook. It is a few years since he has seen it.

Somehow we got everything into Charley’s small car, but what an experience.

Anyway, we soon had it all unloaded into my kitchen/dining room & got to work at the kitchen bench with chopping boards & some sharp knives. Charley & I work well together & we chopped up enough ingredients for four batches of relish. We had bought enough for fourteen batches, which yielded just on 120 jars as we had little left from last year & needed a good supply to start the New Year.

Charley came to help out the next day also as she had plans for this year. David makes a delicious Tomato Chutney that he shares with a lot of people& gets many accolades for it. Charley has had in mind for some time to make this chutney to include in our list of culinary produce.

It seemed, now was the time to introduce a new product. I was happy to along with this, but with youth on her side I told Charley this was her baby as I had enough to do with the relish & Christmas puddings.

I peeled all the many kilos of tomatoes for her chutney & helped out with the peeling & vitamizing of the kilos of onions & then left her to it. I still had masses of relish to make, which kept me busy for a day or two.

I have two very large Cordon Blue saucepans, famous for French cooking, that I purchased about forty years ago at great cost. However, they have proved to be invaluable over the years as they are what I boil the puddings in.

Now Charley was to use them to make Dad’s Tomato Chutney. The contents have to simmer for a few hours to reduce the content. What I forgot to mention to Charley was to keep stirring the mixture.

At the end of the process there was a nice burnt mass on the bottom of the saucepan, which took some elbow grease to remove. However, when I tasted the chutney it was quite delicious, with a nice smokey taste. It wasn’t like chutney, but more like a sauce so we we invented a new name: Smokey BBQ Sauce.

Charley got 10 out of 10 for her efforts & we had a new product to sell: a dozen nice big jars of Smokey BBQ Sauce, which looked good in recycled coffee jars with a glass lid.

So with the relish all bottled, labelled & priced – likewise the new Smoky BBQ Sauce – we set off for our first market for the year, which was at Warners Bay. This is one of the best markets & we were looking forward to it.

The date had been changed from second Saturday in the month to the third Saturday. The venue had also been changed from the park where it was held previously, to over the road on the foreshore of Lake Macquarie where the boat racing was held in October.

This was indeed a lovely venue which will now be permanent & all the stallholders were keen, but wondering if it would still entice the public. We need not have been concerned as it was great. I think it will even become greater as time goes on.

Charley & I went together, set up our stall & had a great day. It was nice & sunny with a lovely breeze from the Lake & the public seemed to like the new product.

We have learnt a few things along the way. At a market as good as this one we only put the relish in jars of a similar size, so that it’s all priced accordingly from the smallest size up to the next three sizes ranging from $10 to $20.

To begin the New Year trade we sold forty five jars in all.

We came home elated, took the costs from the sales & shared the rest with the knowledge that the new Smokey BBQ Sauce was a success: a feather in Charley’s cap even though it took two burnt saucepans! If this was an indication of things to come from our markets & we really were raring to go!

Love You Dear Friend. You are never far from my mind. Dawn X O X O

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2018 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.