Wet Wednesday

I had a solo start to the day at the market rugged up in my layers after freezing all day yesterday. However due to the cloud cover and rain, today is warmer. 

I made two unplanned purchases today. Firstly, the whitest button mushrooms I have ever seen. They look tooooooo good to eat! Secondly crisp large cos lettuce that have leaves the size of your dinner plate.

We have three types of soup today. Pumpkin, veg with chilli and minestrone. Perfect for this cold snap we're having at the moment. 

Some exciting news from yesterday. Quest Newspapers were in contact and are wanting to do an editorial on the shop. We're all very excited and will keep you posted for the publishing date. 

Back to work,

Sarah

Sign-o-rama!

We finally had our sign installed this morning! Isn't it pretty!

there can never be enough variety in your life

Monday and Tuesday were terrific days for buying variety at the market as well as farmers coming to the shop selling produce.

We have 5 varieties of tomatoes at the moment, all tasty and some of them acid free for those with delicate stomachs. (tiny yellow pear shaped ones in punnets)

Would you believe lime green cauliflowers !!  pink and white stripped aussie garlic and purple flesh potato (purple congo for mash and roast) and pomelos (cross between navels, grapefruit and water, the size of rockmelons, great for juicing and jams).

Quest Southern Star newspapers called in yesterday and took awesome photos as we are finalists in the new business category as recommended by customers.  Thank you to those wonderful people who took the time to nominate us.

After 5 months and standover tactics with the sign manufacturers we had our front of shop sign delivered and installed this morning.  It makes our shop look full of promise and instead of faded and worn and maybe only temporary (which we are definately  not).

If you need a little heat in your life, habanero and birds eye chillies are back in from Bundaberg. Both chillies are for serious chilli lovers as they are 11 / 10 on the heat scale.

If you had called in the shop yesterday, Monday, you would have seen all of us there.  Mondays are our lets get down and dirty days.  Ric (Kelly's husband) is still on  holidays and we are loving having his muscle and height (6'3").  His nickname for himself is "forklift" we call him "hey big fella".  Potatoes need rotating and onions need shelling and rotating.  Pumpkins are delivered and need to be taken off the farm truck and into the shop to be put where ever they fit. Speaking of pumpkins , we have Potkins in the shop. A smaller hollow pumpkin great as a serving dish for pumpkin soup or for stuffing with mince and rice for vegetarians. Recipe to follow blog. Ric cleans our louvers for us and our light fittings because we are toooo busy with decorating the shop, chatting to customers and most of all we can't reach the fittings and windows.

Mum comes in on Mondays to dust, sweep and mop floors as well as follow me around and finish all the jobs I half start because something more (!) interesting catches my eye or a customers wants advice on a recipe or produce thats in season.

Kym and Sarah walk around all day shaking their heads , because their shop has been overrun with helpful (?) family members and I'm sure they can't wait for Tuesday to come to have the shop to themselves.

As you can see by the length of this blog, I am loving  putting my thoughts down.  Watch out if one of those arrogant males at the Rocklea Markets ignores me , I will name and shame them.

I'm off to the city tomorrow to sell say 10 varieties of potatoes as well as pumpkins onions garlic etc etc so no blogging.  (recipe following)       Kelly.

Potkin pumpkins

Cut in half and scoop out seeds and membranes with spoon, melon baller or ice cream scoop.

Scrub pumpkin skin , spray or rub oil over out and inside of pumpkin halves.

Roast in oven 180 c till almost done.

NOW - two ways to go  1/ pumpkin soup  2/ stuffed pumpkin

1/ scrape out almost cooked pumpkin from each half , leaving enough pumpkin in shell so shell will stand on its own

- make your usual pumpkin soup with the cooked pumpkin pulp (plus a bit more so shell is full when you add the soup)

- pour made soup in shell and serve sprinkled with parsley .

2/ add cooked filling to pumpkins (eg mince and veg mix or rice mix or pasta mix)

- sprinkle with cheese and grill till brown

- serve.

Visual Bliss

Monday Market Madness

What a beautiful day to start the new week! We've got beautiful bunches of baby carrots and beets, green cauli's, radishes, fresh peas in the pod from Beaudesert (they're so cute! Yet also crisp and tasty)kaffir lime leaves, red swiss chard, curry leaves, baby roma's Fresh in this morning we received lots of single ladies, but sadly no Beyonce.

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I hope you're all enjoying the glorious sunshine today, even if it is chilly in the shade!

Sarah

in the beginning

Welcome.. Five months after opening our boutique fruit /veg/mini deli shop we have begun our blogging.

This the beginning of a dream for me, Kelly(Mum), to be able to ramble on and no one can stop me ( unless the girls change the password for the blog spot). I am passionate about fruit and veg, freshness and quality, variety, and after being in the fruit and veg game for nearly 20 years I still seek out fruit shops and delis for new ideas.

My Mum (Barbara) regularly helps in the shop. Mum works harder than any of us.She is methodical and is rarely led astry from the job at hand, completing one task before starting another. (Something Kymberlee and I have to learn)

Kymberlee (daughter) and Sarah (Kym's partner) are the ones that do all the hours, chat to the customers, open early and close late. Kymberlee has the flare for displays and beautiful writing for all our chalk boards. Sarah is our neat freak and muscle with heavy boxes and moving furniture (we have our share of vintage furniture in the shop and Kymberlee likes Sarah to rearrange it regularly!!)Sarah is our fridge display person, a place for everything and everything in its place!

We have had a stall at Jan Powers Markets , New Farm and City, for 7 years where we specalise in fresh gourmet potatoes(also onions, pumpkin, aussie garlic, eumundi ginger, galangal and turmeric). We are often asked where our customers can purchase our farm fresh potatoes besides the markets. Now we have an outlet as well as a delivery service for this very purpose.

It wouldn't be the same without my husband, Ric, giving us his misguided thoughts and ideas. What, you want to sell gourmet potatoes at a market? What, you want to open a shop? What,? you want to paint the shop black and purple(aubergine)? What, you want to sell deli items? Where is the till going to go? on an old table, are you serious? Apart from all this he is great at cleaning the lights, unloading pumpkins off the truck, rotating the dirty potatoes and onions and every second Saturday afternoon he gives the girls the afternoon off and looks after the shop. If you do come in on one of those special Saturday afternoons, the efptos machine isn't really broken, Ric hides it because he hates using it. (Ric is just becoming used to mobile phones and emails, facebook loses him). He also has a loud voice and bad jokes. Jake, our son, occassionally helps on weekends and school holidays. He is the polite blonde one.

I read magazines and newspapers and recipe books so will let you know up to date ideas and also incorrect suggestions that some people write (and hang up on me when I phone them , to correct them (this was before I became computer savy, now I email)).

For the next 3 to 4 months we will have the freshest strawberries, picked in the early am and delivered to us by 10am. Rhubarb is direct from Mt Tamborine, ruby red and delicious. Topless pineapples from Caboolture are delicious and no black heart in them.

Gourmet Tassie potatoes are tasty and local cauliflowers and carrots are at their peak for the next 2 months.

Love doing this, will talk again soon. Kelly