The end of daylight saving signals the beginning of autumn and any hope of a long languid Indian summer has been cut short by cooler days and even cooler nights.
But autumn does have its upside – the Market is full of autumn bounty.

Right now my kitchen bench is covered in assorted bowls overflowing with the colour and fragrance of quinces, pears and pomegranates. There are pears, figs and apples gleaned from a neighbour’s garden and Bill and Soula Andonopoulos’ vanilla persimmons sitting on my bench like giant, shiny, orange Christmas tree decorations in delicious contrast to the furry lime of the quinces.

At the weekend, I poached some of the quinces in a sugar syrup with star anise in a covered dish in the oven until they were soft, gooey and deep red in colour. Every morning since I’ve had them for breakfast with lashings of B.–d Farm Paris Creek vanilla yogurt and a sprinkling of the Original Cereal Company’s muesli.

This year, for the first time, my own autumn garden is full of pumpkins and not much else. They were self-sown from my compost heap  - which I guess says something about the benefits of compost when every other year I've struggled to have anything growing at the end of a hot summer.

I share my vegetable garden with the rabbits who seem to think I grow the veggies just for them. I’ve given up trying to fence them out. I’m just trying to live with them and am prepared to share, for the moment anyway!

Last week, to top off the autumnal theme, Aerlie (our Market Manager) and I visited Adelaide Hills Fresh Chestnuts, an Adelaide Hills’ grower who recently applied for a stall at the ASFM. What a treat to drive through the Hills at this time of year to visit their property. Sally and Sam have been growing chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts and a few varieties of exotic fruits for the last 20 odd years. The business grew out of Sam’s nostalgia for his Italian homeland where roasted chestnut stalls were a common sight during the autumn months. So from now on we too will have chestnuts for sale at the Market in autumn, adding to the diversity and abundance of seasonal produce at the Market.

McLaren Vale Orchards, The Food Forest and Taronga Orchard will have their new season’s crop of pistachios, almonds and walnuts available at the ASFM during the coming weeks.

Seasonality is the key to what farmers’ markets are all about. When new season’s produce appears we are reminded of harvests past and meals we have shared, and where we were when we last tasted a particular fruit or vegetable. New season produce inspires us to go home and dig out those favourite recipes that we prepare at this time of the year. We are reminded of the cycle of life and of family traditions.

I cooked duck with quince and star anise at Easter as I always do. It’s my Easter tradition. One of my daughter’s favourite food combos at this time of year is duck with pomegranate seeds so why not try it for yourself with one of Inman Valley Poultry's ducks and one of McLaren Vale Orchards' perfect pomegranates?  In fact why not share your favorite autumn recipes with us? Send them in and we’ll publish them on the website and share them with our members.

In the meantime I’m looking for recipes that use pumpkin, quince and pears to lighten the load on my kitchen bench. Any ideas?

Bon appetite. 

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This Mother's Day the Market will have a great assortment of flowers and gifts for those who want to spoil Mum with a fresh South Australian gift.

MB Flowers (site 65), Rich Pickings (site 68) and Olympus Flowers (site 48) all have bright, colourful and fragrant flowers available on the day.  Rich Pickings have attractive native arrangements for sale.  Olympus Flowers will have bunches of lisianthus and bunches of carnations, as well as mixed bunches, all for the bargain price of $5 for members.

If you are looking for a different type of flower to give your Mum, Sonya from Chocoholics Synonymous will be making chocolate daisy, astor and carnation heads on a stick - why not give a bunch to your Mum? Sonya will also have creamy fairy cakes in chocolate and vanilla with pink frosting especially for Mother's Day.

Steven ter Horst, Chocolatier, and Howard Vineyard are teaming up to present a Mother's Day pack of chocolate and wine. Two different packs will be available, one with a cabernet franc rose and another with a sparkling pinot noir. Both packs will also contain chocolate macarons and chocolate truffles infused with Howard Vineyard wine.

The Kids' Club will be making a Mother's Day tasting plate using the beautiful produce from the Market, including a smoked coorong mullet pate using mullet from Coorong Wild Seafood, with handmade grissini and pesto, plus dukkah and olive oil from Bald Hills Olive Grove.

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May is morning tea time and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea will be held at the Market on 22 May, with all proceeds going to the Cancer Council of Australia.  

The ASFM Kids’ Club will be a paid session for the day, with kids donating $2 towards the cause.  Kuhl Kooking will be making and donating cupcakes for the Kids’ Club to decorate and the kids will be wearing Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea aprons.  The aprons will then be sold to Market patrons at a reduced rate of $10 each.

The boys at Kuhl Kooking will also have cupcakes for sale in the hospitality area and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea mugs of tea and coffee for sale - all proceeds will go to Australia's Biggest Morning Tea.

The funds raised from Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea help Cancer Council to continue their work in cancer research, prevention, education and support services. In 2010, Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea raised over  $10 million. The target for 2011 is $11 million.  It is estimated that 1 in 2 Australians are diagnosed with cancer before age 85, so every dollar counts.

Why not hold your own morning tea anytime between May and June using fresh produce from the Market? To find out more and to register to hold your own morning tea, click here. There is even the chance to win prizes.

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea is the second fundraiser by Kuhl Kooking for cancer prevention this year.  The SA's Biggest Sausage Sizzle held at the Market on 10 April was a great success, with $540 raised and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. A special thanks to Sophie and Ella Summers who sold all the sausages to make this event so successful, also a big thankyou to stallholder Najobe Park Red Angus and Robe Butchers for donating sausages to the event.

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Scan your membership card on 8 May and be in the draw to win a family pass to Let's Party!

Ordinary objects... EXTRAordinary Science!

That Science Gang is throwing a party and you’re all invited! We’ve got all sorts of brilliant scientific surprises to unwrap. You won’t believe your eyes and ears as an absurd collection of ordinary objects – balloons, plastic cups, string, garbage bags and more – are made to do the strangest things.

Watch out for floating beach balls, smokey air doughnuts and singing buckets.
Science is fun at this party!

FOUNDATION KIDS CORNER - workshop run after Let's Party - FREE with your ticket to Let's Party! 
SCIENCE HEAD
Create mad scientist headbands and crazy fun inventions with Irene & co using recycled materials.

1-3pm
Space Foyer 

About Something on Saturday:
Something on Saturday at the Adelaide Festival Centre offers 17 weeks of fantastic entertainment for children aged 3-10 years and their families from 7 May to 3 September 2011.  We are happy to have one member's prize per month donated by the Adelaide Festival Centre for Something on Saturday shows for the next few months.

Every week of the season there is a paid performance with a different show each week – including music, dance, ballet, puppetry, circus, musical theatre, kids cabaret and much more. Plus they offer FREE Kids Corner Craft Workshops.  You can come to the free workshops and get creative for two hours, or come and see a show plus join in the workshops before or after the show. It's your choice and no bookings are required for the workshops. 
   

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Products: Venison, veal, buffalo, goat, Velvet Nera

Pioneers of the deer industry in SA, Hahndorf Venison began back in 1978 when John DeLaine’s father, Des, noticed a lack of venison in the South Australian marketplace.   The business begun by Des DeLaine 33 years ago is now a model of local and sustainable farming practice.

Des was an engineering pattern maker who came from a farming background and deer hunting was one of his hobbies when he was younger.  Some of Hahndorf Venison’s deer were originally imported from NZ and others captured from the wild mainly from the south east of South Australia.  Today Hahndorf Venison has up to 400 livestock which are locally grown on their properties at Hahndorf and Wistow.

Hahndorf Venison’s elite breeding herd is kept at Hahndorf where the administration office and processing facility are located. The majority of the stock marked for processing, which includes Red Deer, Fallow Deer and Elk, is kept at the Wistow property.

John explained a little about the quality of their special venison sausages.

“What we’re doing is a really high quality sausage and those sausages aren’t cheap. They’re $17 plus a kilo but I can make a cheap sausage but it’s not going to be in a natural casing, it is going to be in a collagen casing with more water lesser quality venison trim.  So you can cut corners but we choose not to.”

The whole family works in the business, including John’s father who is “retired but sort of potters around.”  The business processes around a ton of meat a week in the peak of the “game season”, with the boning room operating full time for approximately 3 days a week.  In addition to that, there is the farming and feeding of animals to attend to.

John explained their sustainable farming philosophy,

“Water’s absolutely imperative and needs to be checked every day, especially on hot days. 24 hours without water and you’ve got some real issues. We’ve looked at the whole issue of the way we do our farming and that comes back to minimum impact and sustainability.  We’ve done a lot of water course reclaim because we’re a fairly water sensitive area... Hahndorf’s in what they call the Onkaparinga-Torren’s catchment, Wistow is in the Murray Darling basin and a major creek runs right through the centre of our property and eventually feeds into the Bremer which is a fairly important water course. We’ve actually fenced all that off to exclude livestock and we've revegetated.”

Hahndorf Venison stopped irrigating their property 5 years ago to conserve power and water.  As a result, they buy the supplementary feeding in from local producers. As John told us,

“All the hay is local that we buy and all the grain is coming from Hartley area– it is just out of Woodchester.  Most of the grain is actually used at Wistow so we’re only talking about 15kms of where we’re buying our grain from.   We try to keep the food miles down as much as we can and try and keep everything local. “

Hahndorf Venison has been at the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market since it began in October 2006.  John DeLaine told us why they choose to sell their product at the Market instead of using a retail outlet of their own.

“We thought that this offered us an opportunity to interact with the people that are possibly eating our products in restaurants, so that we can get our story across.  What I find here is a lot of the clients are pretty switched on.  One of the questions already this morning from one of the customers was “what casings are you using?” If I had said collagen he probably would’ve kept walking.”

Hahndorf Venison also produce a liquor called Velvet Nera, made from the locally harvested extract of deer velvet antler. Deer grow and cast their antler each year and the newly growing antler is covered in soft skin known as velvet.  The velvet is removed because it is a valuable commodity which also prevents hard antler in deer farms.  This is critical to avoid deer injuring each other as they hunt for female companions.   The core of the deer velvet is rich in nutrients and very popular as a “male tonic” especially in Asia.

Many of South Australia’s renown restaurants stock Hahndorf Venison, including Auge, Vincenzo’s Cucina Vera and Bridgewater Mill.  The product is also popular interstate, with famous Melbourne restaurant Il Bacaro stocking the product and Steven at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney using their Velvet Nera in a dessert.

Click below for some recipes using Hahndorf Venison (open in PDF):

Herb and Mustard Crusted Venison Racks; courtesy of John DeLaine, Hahndorf Venison

Seared Miso Crusted Fallow Venison, Grilled Mushroom Salad, Japanese Mustard Sauce; courtesy of Tony Carroll – Jolley’s Boathouse Restaurant and Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation

Venison Curry; courtesy of The Hilton Brasserie

Venison Loin with Kipfler Potato, Onion Jam and Pomegranate Molasses; courtesy of The Hilton Brasserie 

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