Real Food, Real Wine, Real People.

You’d never think a shed could smell so good; mustard, cress, basil, fennel, rocket, chard, radish – a symphony for the nose. Some flavours arrive fast, packing a wallop in the newest shoots. Others develop when they’re a bit older. Great salads are about look first, then smell, then taste. You can always half-remember the taste. We mix it up, toss in a few surprises. I can’t tell you all my secrets.

Deer like hill country, ups and downs, somewhere to run. Lots of grass to eat. Green grass and a clear blue sky. Our land is a natural fit with deer. It’s not a bad life. And it’s a good use of the land for the long haul. Something to pass along. I love venison – it’s perfect seared quickly then left to rest.

Bees aren’t architects, they’re interior designers. They find a spot they like, then start building their hexagonal honeycombs. Our bees make breakfast honey, for your toast. Good basic honey from pasture and Manuka. We extract and cream the honey at our base in Takapau. Pure blends, mixed just enough to get the right consistency. There’s nothing added. Its just honey. We have 500 apiary sites. My lunch is in a different picnic spot every day.

We like to sell our cherries at the gate. Kirsten is there every day in the season, busy with canny locals and fortunate passers-by. Kirsten has a rule — you can’t buy our cherries until you’ve tried one first. It’s hard not to eat them when you’re picking. What is it about eating a cherry that makes me feel so good? They grow in pairs, so the one I’m eating is quickly followed by another.

Mushrooms enjoy the dark. They need a damp and willing bed. They love warmth. Get it right and they arrive in their thousands. A white forest appears before your eyes. When they're ripe, they're ready. They can be ready at any size. They're like people in that way, some will be big, and some small. I could eat them everyday. In fact, I probably do. The big brown flats barbecue well, with just a little olive oil.

I grew up playing with preserving jars and lids while my mother made pickles and preserves. We ate with the seasons, and put preserves away for winter. Now, everything is available year round. Maybe that means we’ve lost something? Better food means a better quality of life. We celebrate the simple things. The smells and flavours that make a home, and memories.

Warehou, orange roughy, hoki, gurnard, groper, I like them all, particularly snapper. I like filleting a fish that has had a good life and sharing it with others. There’s something about doing it by hand anyway. You get better fillets. And it has to be done fast. People want fresh, but they want perfect too.The best part of a good sized snapper is the head, the big pockets of sweet flesh. Most people go straight for the middle.

Cheese, it’s deliberate. People praise our cheese, it wins awards. But I say, our cheese is a part... well, it’s the end of something. Our cheese is good because of the milk we use. The milk is good because of the way we farm. Our cheese tastes of this land. You can make a mild cheese in eight weeks. But wait, if you can wait, in eight months you get something rich, complex, powerful. I like powerful cheese.

Olives are good for you. I love the taste of strong, raw unfiltered olive oil. I like to drink it — straight, no chaser. We make olive oils from grove to press to bottle. Doing all of it is about care and control. I want to make sure we make it the best we can. Eating olives is the taste of happiness — long, last-light evenings, and dawn’s still quiet.

I tell a story in every sauce. A beginning that hooks you, the first taste you’ll always remember. New flavours open up, move you along. A clean finish. A good sauce is complex but simple, considered. A pure idea where every taste shines. It all adds to the story, everything is there for a reason. That’s the magic of sauce.

Good bread is so rich and full you eat less and enjoy it more. Ours are whole grain breads. They fill you up, but in a good way. I’m a fourth generation baker. My family had a 100 year-old business in Stuttgart. My day starts at 3am, working and mixing the doughs that rested overnight. By 5am the ovens are busy. Our breads take as long as they need. They won’t be hurried. Bread is alive — feast not fuel. Eat it well.