Inside this edition: - The sense of occasion in summer, by CEO, Amanda Daniel
- Christmas and the festive season at the Market
- Sustainable gardening day, Sunday 4 December
- The full ASFM Kids' Club returns, Sunday 4 December
- The Adelaide Showground Farmers Market Awards presentation,
Sunday 11 December - Woodside Cheese Wrights session, Sunday 11 December
- New and returning stallholders
- Special members offers this month!
- The Mummy Tree Market, Sunday 4 December
- Get 20% off Bubble 'n' Squeak gift boxes online
- Win a copy of The New Organic Gardener
- Win a $25 voucher for Woodside Cheese Wrights
- Win a $25 voucher for Ruby Spoon
- Win an Adelaide Showground Farmers Market Christmas Hamper
- Win a $25 voucher to spend at Inman Valley Poultry
- What's HOT this month – Strawberries, lemon aspen and desert lime sorbet, red and yellow cherry and roma tomatoes, seedlings and Christmas cheer
- Producer of the Month – Ruby Spoon
- Programme of events – December
- Who's in this month – fortnightly stalls for December
November 2011's Digest can be found here.
 - Christmas Summer Pudding, pic courtesy of Helen K
What we eat says a lot about us. Our summer seasonal celebrating brings out our most profound foodie commentary. December is the season where we draw on our sense of tradition, whether it be chicken in the Weber or glazed regional ham and basted roast duck, linking us to our European roots.
Traditional food has an important place in our modern eating. It is a delicious history lesson. Historically significant food tells of traditions and values from another time. Special occasion food embodies a sense of occasion and celebrates the ingenuity of the human spirit as it binds us to the land.
Time-honoured recipes have evolved from the ingredients available, local food. Sharing and celebrating with food has built communities and described cultures. Recipes lovingly handed down from one generation to the next cradle families and tell of their time in history.
All the ingredients are at our Market for you to evoke your sense of occasion, your family recipes and create your own new traditions. Whether it be a platter of scallops and a loaf of sour dough followed by a bowl of cherries, or traditional cooked feasts with mince pies, the essence of Christmas is at the Market.
I am remembering my Grandma’s Christmas cooking this year and investing in my own family's traditions - celebrating the food that is grown near me.
Merry Christmas and a sustainable new year from all of us at the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market.
Top We are pleased to announce two Twilight Markets for the festive season. There will be a Christmas Twilight Market on Thursday 22 December from 4pm-8pm so that you can buy all the produce you need for Christmas. There will also be a New Year's Twilight Market on Thursday 29 December from 4pm-8pm to allow you to buy SA produce for your New Year’s celebrations.
Please note that the Kuhl Kooking catering van will not be open at the Twilight Markets on Thursday 22 December and Thursday 29 December.
The Market will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Members can expect all the regular Market stallholders with fabulous fresh South Australian produce. You can also look forward to extra Christmas treats in December such as mince pies, rich Christmas cake, panforte, chocolate truffle cake with fruit and nut and German Stollen with or without marzipan from stallholder Chocoholics Synonymous (all available with or without gluten). Sonia from Chocoholics strongly encourages you to place orders as they sold out last year!
Steven ter Horst Chocolatier has a Christmas pudding-flavoured chocolate made with currants, calvados and Lebkuchen (gingerbread) spice, as well as a delectable Christmas-spiced chocolate truffle tart. Buy real Christmas puddings from Quench Cordials and wonderful gingerbread houses and gingerbread Christmas trees from Perryman’s of North Adelaide. Stallholders Hahndorf Gourmet, San Jose Smallgoods and Minniribbie Berkshire Pig Farm are currently taking orders for Christmas hams and Inman Valley Poultry is taking orders for free-range chooks and ducks to make your Christmas lunch taste even better.
For those of you wanting seafood for your Christmas day celebrations - Polacco Family Scallops and Sea Urchins have wild, hand-picked scallops, Kinkawooka Mussels have award-winning mussels and you can get sustainable fish from Coorong Wild Seafood. Looking for Christmas gifts? Gift memberships to the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market are available for $62. Couple this with a Market car park card for an extra $37.50 and save the gift receiver $3 a week in parking costs. If you want to put together a Christmas hamper, many stallholders are selling Christmas gift packs. Finger-food specialist Bubble ‘n’ Squeak are selling gourmet gift boxes at 20% off if you order online. Howard Vineyard have a 3 pack of 750ml wines for $55, which includes their 2010 Sparkling Brut, 2011 Sauvignon Blanc and their 2010 Cabernet Franc Rose. Wild Fox Wines also have a gift pack of 6 piccolo varieties including a shiraz, a cabernet sauvignon, a merlot, rose, sparkling red and either a sav blanc or a chardonnay. You can also buy "saucy" gift packs from The Passionate Foodie. The ASFM Kids’ Club will be celebrating Christmas with guest chefs from the Hilton Hotel’s Brasserie Restaurant on Sunday 18 December. The Christmas party will also include a visit from a very special resident of the North Pole.
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Creating a sustainable food supply is very important to us at the Market and sustainable gardening is part of this. Educating kids about the benefits and pleasures of gardening is also important. At 10am, the ASFM Kids Club will be planting seedlings and sprucing up the garden with our new Kids' Club coordinator Rebecca Sullivan, in conjunction with Diana from Bickleigh Vale Farm. Register from 9am at the Demo Kitchen in the Market pavilion.
ASFM Garden patron and ABC gardening guru Sophie Thomson will be in the demo kitchen at 11am on Sunday 4 December to give us her tips on how to make the most out of our backyard and kitchen scraps. From the pleasures of compost to creating your own worm farms, Sophie inspires even the least green fingered of us to give gardening a go. Sophie will also have gardening giveaways of super gardening tools and organic pick me ups for the garden.
At 11.45am in the Demo Kitchen, author Tim Marshall will be presenting his new book, The New Organic Gardener. Tim has been at the forefront of the Australian organic industry for 25 years as an innovator, grower, inspector, trainer and writer. He is a contributor to Gardening Australia magazine and he is also the author of Bug, Composting and Weed. Tim lives on a small property in Stirling with 500,000 compost earthworms and a black dog called Ace. The New Organic Gardener is sold in shops for $55 but Tim will be selling his book to members for $45. Members can buy the book in the Demo Kitchen after the presentation - yet another great Christmas present idea!
You can buy seedlings and seeds for your veggie patch from stallholders Bickleigh Vale Farm and Hillside Herbs. What better time than during the holidays to start a veggie garden?
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The Kids' Club returns in December with a new coordinator. Rebecca Sullivan joins us on Sunday 4 December as Kitchen Coordinator, managing both the Kids' Club and the Demo Kitchen activities. Rebecca joins us with ample experience gained working on Channel Ten's Junior Masterchef. She has moved to Adelaide after spending the past decade living and working in the UK with farmers Markets and London's Borough Market.
This Sunday the Kids' Club will be treated to a session with Sophie Thomson, find out more here.
On Sunday 11 December, Lee Harrison, Mobile Science Education will bring his own culinary magic to the Market, teaching kids about the science behind food.
On Sunday 18 December, the whizz kids at the Hilton's Brasserie Hotel join the Kids Club, cooking up Christmas treats in a Christmas party extravaganza. Kids can also expect a visit from a very special someone!
Registrations for the Kids' Club will be taken from 9am in the main demo kitchen on the day of the session and sessions in December will run from 10am-11am.
There will be no Kids' Club activities or kitchen demonstrations at the Twilight Markets.
Top Join us in the Market Square in the Pavilion at 11am on Sunday 11 December for the presentation of the annual Adelaide Showground Farmer Awards. We will be joined by The Advertiser food writer Dianne Mattsson, judge of our new award, the Media Award, and the Hiltons Adelaide's Executive Chef Dennis Leslie, judge of the Chef's Inspiration Award. Find out more about the awards here.
There's still time to vote but you must hurry as the last forms must be received at the Market this Sunday 4 December! Voting forms are available at the Info Tent. Alternatively you can download and print the form here.
Please complete and return your form to the Info Tent staff.
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Woodside Cheese Wrights will be in the Demo Kitchen at 11.15am on Sunday 11 December. Join Market Cheese Expert Geeta Sidhu as she talks about their spring cheeses and shows you how to make her favourite Lemon Curd Cheesecake using Woodside Goat Curd. Geeta will be assisted by Head Cheese Maker Kris Lloyd.
Kris gave us some information about their spring cheese range, saying,
"In spring milking goats graze on young green shoots in pastures which are sweet and nutritious, this is transferred directly to the milk. We refer to this time as Spring Milk Season where we reintroduce many cheeses that have not been produced over the winter months. This explains the absence of your favourite Australian goat milk cheese. No different to other produce, cheese has a season when it is at its best! There is a sophistication in understanding the seasons and what each season brings, now becoming a vital part of how Australian Food lovers and consumers behave and think about food ... is it in season?
Spring and early summer is the best time to eat goat milk cheese, in particular our fresh Goat Curd. This has to be one of my favourite cheeses, mainly because of its simplicity and the different ways it can be served, eaten and cooked with. We make Goat Curd 3 - 4 times a week so it is always super fresh, just the way I like it."
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In December we welcome three new stallholder sto the Market and welcome back another seasonal stallholder. Cookies, Crumbs and Cupcakes sell handmade from scratch cookies and cupcakes. Cupcake flavours include handmade lemon curd filled cake with toasted meringue frosting and almond burnt butter cookies. Run by Lisa Aschmoneit of Woodcroft, Cookies, Crumbs and Cupcakes uses seasonal produce in their cakes and so their flavours change every season.
Lisa joins us at the Market from this Sunday 4 December at site 38.
Top Dirty Girl Kitchen joins us on Sunday 4 December selling her old-fashioned jams and sauces, just like "Grandma used to make." Dirty Girl Kitchen is the brain-child of Rebecca Sullivan, who is also the new ASFM Kitchen Coordinator. Dirty Girl Kitchen will be selling jams with a floral difference, such as wild willow marmalade, made with willow water, and apricot and lavender jam. Also look out for her rose-scented persian brittle and strawberry friands. You can find Dirty Girl Kitchen in the new aisle near B.-d Farm Paris Creek.
Top Richard Bennett from Fleurieu Garlic is back at the Market with new season's garlic from the Fleurieu Peninsula. Fleurieu Garlic can be found at site 86, next to Bickleigh Vale Farm.
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GR & FA Schubert join us with their cherries! Their cherries are grown in Cherryville using organic principles. They will be at the Market on Sunday 4 December at site 59.
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Bubble'n'Squeak have just opened their online shop selling gourmet gift boxes and are offering 20% off for Christmas! The gift boxes are packed with all South Australian Artisan products, many from the Market. Perfect for Christmas presents! Order online at www.bubblensqueakonline.com.au (enter Market pick-up when purchasing to save on delivery) or purchase direct from Liberty at stall no.2. Corporate bespoke orders also welcome!
Click here for further information, including the 20% discount code.
Top The Mummy Tree Market is coming to Adelaide with the inaugural Market to be held on Sunday 4 December, 10am- 3pm, at the Stirling Angas Pavilion at the Showground.
The Mummy Tree's objective is to support small business families (mainly work at home parents) to grow their businesses and help them achieve their business and family goals. Their boutique market will showcase over 80 businesses with chic, inspired and unique products and services on offer. Free family entertainment will be provided by Groovy Chicks and Pirate Ships, Cool 4 Kids, Planet Teal and wine tasting by Sarantos Wines. Entry is free. It will be more than a market – but an event and there will be something for the whole family. Supporters of the ASFM are invited to come along and enjoy the atmosphere and support local small businesses. www.themummytreemarkets.com.au
Top Scan your membership card on Sunday 4 December for a chance to win a signed copy of the book The New Organic Gardener, valued at $55.
The most comprehensive gardening book now available in Australia, The New Organic Gardener by Tim Marshall is set to become the gardening bible for every Australian gardener.
Throughout the beautifully photographed pages of this all–inclusive guide to organic gardening, renowned gardening writer Tim Marshall guides you through the organic gardening process with his expert approach and extensive knowledge.
The New Organic Gardener provides detailed information on the most current and topical issues surrounding organic gardening, including:
• Gardening for climate change
• The vital link between soil and health
• Companion planting and crop rotation
• Weed control
• Advice on what to grow, including flowers, fruit trees, vegetables, lawns and lawn alternatives, and herbs
In The New Organic Gardener, Tim not only guides you through the principles of organic gardening, he explains the reasons behind these principles and why they work. Most importantly, successful organic gardening is not just a matter of blindly following a set of rules. Experiment, be creative and make discoveries about how plants best thrive and flourish in your unique garden with The New Organic Gardener.
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Scan your membership card on Sunday 11 December for a chance to win a $25 voucher to spend at Woodside Cheese Wrights.
Since their inception in 1994, Woodside Cheese Wrights have hand-made all their cheeses. Their multi-award winning cheeses are made in line with the seasons, making their local base and seasonal focus a perfect fit for the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market. Woodside's high quality cheese has been highly acclaimed and their staff have been recognised too, with Head Cheesemaker Kris Lloyd the winner of the Nokia Business Innovation Award at the Telstra Business Women's Awards in 2010. Located at site 14 inside the Market pavilion, Woodside employee Geeta Sidhu is well versed on the best Woodside cheeses to suit your tastes and loves to get members' feedback as they taste cheeses each week.
Shoppers will be able to watch Geeta and Kris in the Demo Kitchen on Sunday 11 December at 11.15am as Geeta demonstrates how to make her favourite Lemon Curd cheesecake using Woodside Goat Curd.
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Scan your membership card on 18 December for a chance to win a $25 voucher to spend at Ruby Spoon. Find out more about Ruby Spoon here.
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Scan your membership card at the Christmas Twilight Market on Thursday 22 December for your chance to win a Christmas hamper! Filled with delectable Christmas treats from our very own producers at the Market, the hamper is a terrific Christmas treat for yourself or a wonderful gift for someone special.
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Scan your membership card at the New Year's Twilight Market on Thursday 29 December for a chance to win a $25 voucher to spend at Inman Valley Poultry. Located at site 51 at the entrance to the Market, Inman Valley Poultry is run by farmer Ashley Bowyer, who sells free-range chicken and also duck eggs. Inman Valley Poultry's chickens are hormone-free, antibiotic-free, chemical-free and free of growth stimulants. Ashley is also taking orders for free-range chicken and ducks for Christmas.
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 - Anne with seedlings from Hillside Herbs
Strawberries are probably the most popular item at the Market at the moment. We are currently looking at sourcing more strawberries for the Market to meet customer demand, however this is just to let you know that the new name at the Market in strawberries is still the same stallholder. Hillside Farm Strawberries have changed their name to Kuitpo Forest Strawberries. They told us,
"The name Hillside Farm originated when we set up the strawberry farm at the old “Sherry” property at Blewitt Springs which had traditionally been called “Hillside”. However, in 2000, for a number of reasons, we moved the whole operation to the current farm located on the lovely Fleurieu Penninsula adjacent to the Kuitpo Forest. So, very soon you will be seeing our new re-vamped packaging and labelling to reflect our new trading name of Kuitpo Forest Strawberries. Operationally you won’t notice a thing other than our new glossy blue boxes and updated to match blue punnet labels."
Lemon Aspen and Desert Lime Sorbet - a new sorbet from Bush Tucker Ice Cream (site 7), described by Bush Tucker's Sandra Pickett as "a very pleasant flavor and deliciously thirst quenching. It is a very smooth texture with wonderful mouth-feel. It is not icey to the bite like many sorbets."
Red and yellow cherry and roma tomatoes from Alnda Farms (site 84).
Seedlings from Bickleigh Vale Farm (site 85) and Hillside Herbs (site 88). Now is a great time to start your own veggie garden. Find out more at our sustainable gardening session on Sunday 4 December at 11am.
And finally - what's hot? The Christmas produce and Christmas cheer all around the Market.
Top  - Lynda's daughter Ellen gives the berries the thumbs up
Find Ruby Spoon at the Market at site 36
Tradition runs through the Ruby Spoon business, from the growing principles, to the berries, to the jams that result. We spoke to Lynda Demaagd of Ruby Spoon about their fruit, jams and the farm.
“Mum and Dad had a berry farm and they’d been operating that for over 30 years, and they did “pick your own” but now we just grow berries and make them into jams. It’s still very much a hands-on process,” she said.
The property is located on the outskirts of Hahndorf, between Hahndorf and Mylor.
“We do have a lot of fresh fruit as well as frozen fruit – we try and have lots during the year and that seems to have been quite popular,” she said, “but we also grow rhubarb which we sell fresh or frozen.”
Ruby Spoon use a number of the older-heritage varieties in their jams and they are selective about which variety of berry goes into the jam because flavour is paramount.
“Originally we started out with flavour being the key,” she said, “so with the strawberries we only use the one variety, apricots we only use the Moore Park, and we make a fig and almond jam but we only use 2 sorts of figs – they’re a darker variety, more the older, heritage variety. We make a Seville Orange marmalade and a cumquat marmalade which are really popular and they’re the old traditional ones.”
Ruby Spoon try to grow as much fresh fruit as they can for their jams, however because of their Adelaide hills location, they do need to buy in some fruits, such as apricots, from other parts of South Australia. But with strawberries, tayberries, loganberries, boysenberries and silvanberries grown on the property using old-fashioned growing principles such as no sprays, the family is kept very busy throughout the year. Even the berry bushes themselves are very old.
“I think the loganberry came out during the 1930s and the guy who brought it out here gave some of the canes to Dad quite some time ago so they’re the original ones of those,” said Lynda.
In addition to jams, Ruby Spoon also make and sell a popular apple and chilli jelly, quince paste and crab apple and ginger jelly, which Lynda says is “nice to have with cheeses.”
As the owner of the property, Lynda’s Dad is still involved in the farm as Ruby Spoons main “consultant." Lynda said that the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market is very important to their business.
“We’ve decided to just concentrate on having the produce at the Markets, and just a couple of retails outlets, and focussing a lot on the fresh fruit,” she said. “We kept it so that we can stay at the local Market and have the fresh produce there.”
Top Australian Caper Company: 11 December, 22 December
Bubba Tukka: 4 December, 18 December
Carob Kitchen: 4 December, 18 December
Howard Vineyard: 4 December, 18 December
Kinkawooka Mussels: 4 December, 18 December
Minniribbie Berkshire Pig Farm: 11 December, 22 December
The Food Forest: 11 December, 22 December
Wild Fox Wines: 4 December, 18 December, 22 December
Wilke Estate Organic Wines: 11 December, 22 December
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