Spears of destiny, Too Good to Waste, The Disco Duma Hyperfunk Slam-Jam Experience, boot camp, and the ultimate pizza topping
Once upon a time, in a land not so far from here some industrious agriculturalists beavered away. Tilling the earth and cultivating the soil. Plotting and planning for their future, and assessing the fruits of their labour. For their crop was special, requiring a tender touch and sprouting from the earth only briefly each year. A spear, but technically a fern. A vegetable but technically a herb. Their enigmatic crop brought forth wonder and joy from all who beheld and tasted it. We are of course talking about asparagus, and it gives us great pleasure to announce that Headlam Farm Asparagus are making their first ap(s)pearance for the season! So fresh and gorgeous that it doesn’t even necessarily warrant cooking, this asparagus is truly the very best you’ll find anywhere. We’re super excited to welcome them back at Harvest! We’re certain you are too.
But wait, there’s more! Also joining us for a romp in the Harvest carpark this week is KimchiMe! Ready and raring to go after a winter of growing, harvesting and fermenting, KimchiMe are bringing the goods for your enjoyment and gut health. The flavour kick of kimchi has a place on almost any plate, should you be willing to think outside the box a little. More on this a little later.
Too Good to Waste
We had the pleasure of being present at the first screening of Eat Well Tasmania’s latest project launch, Too Good to Waste. Libby has rallied a group of progressive and like-minded chefs, entrepreneurs and educators to hammer home their message that Tassie’s produce is far, far too good to waste. We’re all aware that food waste is a significant contributor to carbon emissions and household expenditure. But did you know that more than 30% of the food we buy never makes it to the table?! Crazy huh? The short film that Libby has produced is truly excellent, and we encourage everyone to check it out. A beautiful film, about a critical subject, that raises awareness and promotes healthy living and waste minimisation. Truly a credit to all involved and we duly congratulate everyone on its launch and success!
Give it the boot (camp)
Launching anything is really hard. Ask us how we know. That is why the work of organisations like the Startup Boot Camp are important to our broader community. Providing pathways and mentorship for innovative ideas to make it out of brains and into reality, Startup Boot Camp is rolling out its program for 2022/23 as we speak. We’re looking forward to having the current cohort hanging around at Harvest this week, engaging with our producers and patrons, testing and demoing their innovations and generally testing the waters. All part of the journey of a startup and we can’t wait to see what they’ve got up their sleeves.
So you think you can pizza?
Pizza – particularly the wood-fired kind – is not an easy thing. Truly straddling the boundary of art and science. Pizza generally is one of the most consumed takeaway foods in the world. It is ubiquitous and everyone has their opinions. We’re absolutely not entertaining the pineapple debate here. Moot anyhow. No pineapples growing in Tasmania. We’re also not going to give you any dough tips or recipes either. There are innumerable books that do much better at that than us. Try New Pizza by Stefano Manfredi or The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Barenbaum. What we will do, is offer you what we believe to be the ultimate springtime pizza. Mascarpone, asparagus, proscuitto, parmigiano and roquette.
The prosciutto is optional, the pizza stands alone without it, but the consensus in the Harvest office is yes to prosciutto. Take your asparagus bunch, and cut the heads off. Slice the spears into 1-inch pieces, on a heavy diagonal. Very finely dice a small brown onion, mince a clove of garlic and mix the two into your mascarpone with a pinch of chilli flakes. Dress the base with the mascarpone, the diagonal asparagus and the prosciutto and into the oven it goes. Dress the roquette and asparagus heads with some oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. when the pizza comes out, shave on your Parmigiano (so it warms and releases flavour on the hot pizza). Cut it, and then dress it with the asparagus heads and roquette. Belissimo!
So simple, with a great balance of flavours, temperatures and textures and separating the asparagus in this way makes it sing. Do try it.
Oh and one last thing! Our fav morning funk soul reggae R&B spinning market DJ is back baby! Disco Duma is bringing the hyper-funk slam-jam experience back to our SOMA stage this week, and we’re super psyched about it. Reach for the lasers yo!
Thanks for reading, happy pizza’ing and we’ll see you next time.