Milkwood Consultants

Click on the below link to have a look at the beautiful images from Lynne’s recent workshop at Harvest Cafe.

http://commongroundaustralia.com/byronbay/community/events/the-chef-the-cheesemaker/

The day consisted of milking the goats, making an interpretation of a French surface ripened goat’s cheese with Paul Wilson from Nimbin Valley Dairy, lunch and a great discussion about the world cheese scene.

In Australia we like to talk about eating organic produce, and eating seasonally, but it is not really how our shopping is geared. We store things for long periods of time in cool rooms to ensure that they are available year round. We cook to recipes and expect that certain produce will be available to us when we want it.

Here in Sicily, none of this exists. The produce that is available is literally what is in season and it is in abundance. The locals are creative with using one ingredient so that it has multiple applications. They even have festivals to celebrate the picking of certain produce, like a pistachio festival, an olive festival and a tomato festival. Here, they really know how to make one ingredient the hero of a dish.

The history of the food is cherished. Recipes for making salami have been handed down the generations, and the same goes for the cheeses. On every counter at the deli’s you will find a huge round of pecorino Siciliana (local Sicilian pecorino pepato). They use a pick to chunk it off the wheel, and they either grate it for you or you just take the wedge. The salamis are perfectly cured and aged, right there on the deli counter. They don’t have to adhere to the same rules and regulations as us. Food is kept well by the store owners. No one gets sick. No one complains.

When we arrived in Linguaglossa, a town at the foothills of Mt Etna, we could not believe how many little shops there were overflowing with fresh produce, sausages and salami’s (the town’s specialty), cheeses (mostly Italian and a few local) and wine. “Sorry, oranges are out of season, but we have beautiful cherries… Just picked this morning in Fumifreddo”. And these cherries, my lord! They were still on the branch and the juice ran from the stem as you plucked them off. Perfect for eating!

In search of a local pecorino, I stumbled across a shop up near the station. A man was carrying a whole carcass on his shoulder as we entered the shop. He slapped it down on his workbench, right there behind the counter of the shop. Not behind closed doors, but for everyone to see…and he started spruiking. I couldn’t understand all of it, but he was explaining what meat and cut it was…perfect with homemade wine… And he placed two sample cups up on the counter, and filled them with his own homemade vino rosso. A lovely looking young woman approached us and spoke in perfect English. Bravo!! We could communicate. Her name was Sarah, she was originally from Venice. She married Filipo and had their two beautiful children here in Linguaglossa. She is an avid foodie. She gave me a taste of the aged and the fresh pecorino. Both were excellent. Perfectly balanced. So here we were, shopping for groceries one minute, then meeting new friends, sharing cheese and drinking their wine stash the next. Filipo is not a butcher by trade, but he has learnt the art of sausage and salami making from his father since the age of 10 and then learnt to butcher over the years. Watching him calve that carcass was no short of impressive. We spent a good hour in the shop, walked away with 3 bags of delicacies. The mozzarella di buffala only cost €2.70 for 125g. I was in heaven.

Everyday Filipo makes fresh sausages on a huge wooden stump with a polished surface. It is quite a theatre. People watch him make them, and then they buy them. Lots of them.

The meat that is on display is just so fresh and you want to buy everything. If I had more time, I would have tried every cut.

The next day we had lunch at Zia Mela’s (Aunty Mela’s). A homemade penne with  pollpette (meatballs). As we chatted and ate, Zia Mela told us that Filipo was the best butcher in town and that Sarah was very dedicated to her job of sourcing the finest cheeses.

We had found ‘that’ shop I longed for on this trip.

Communities throughout NSW are battling an expanding coal seem gas industry and new government guidelines that allow coal and CSG mining in most of the state.

Communities are angry that Barry O’Farrell’s government is allowing short term interests of big coal and CSG companies to come ahead of the protection of water supplies and productive land.

At a national level, CSG, shale and tight gas is also spreading across Australia as companies and governments try to cash in on the gas rush.

Federal minister for regional Australia, Simon Crean said last year that “Australia will become the Saudi Arabia of gas”.

Demonstrators turned out in their thousands, young and old, to voice their discontent, outside Parliament House yesterday.

Prior to the last election, the government made assurances of a consultative processes around land use plans and management of mining conflicts. People now feel betrayed by the proposal of hypocritical resource management strategies.

Written by Lynne Tietzel

Images provided by Lynne Tietzel

The link between the producer and the market is a complex web; it requires an intricate understanding of both the product, and the market.

This includes understanding the sustainability of resources, creating niche products which fill a demand, correct and attractive labeling, storage, marketing to distribution companies, pricing and logistics and marketing to consumers. The initial success of products lies in their quality, integrity and image on entering the market. The ongoing success is driven by implementing strategic sales & marketing initiatives.

Milkwood consulting is made up of a team of people who understand this chain of events and have become experts in the field of finding a market for artisan products.