26 Apr Harvest Gems 🍂
What a busy few weeks it has been! We continue to welcome our regulars and our lovely local community, but alongside this, the tourists and other visitors are still pouring in! It is wonderful to see the city vibrant, busy and buoyant. Have a look further on in this newsletter to see what the intrepid sketchers got up to at the marvellous Sketchers’ Symposium 2023 (rain, hail or shine…. they experienced Auckland in all weathers!).
Have you heard about, or perhaps you have already visited, The Urban Room? It’s been set up at the ground-level of 188 Quay St. There you’ll find models of Auckland City and other visual planning materials, and you’re also very likely to find Ben van Bruggen, the visionary behind this initiative. With the intention to promote conversation around the urban development of Auckland City and garner feedback from all of us, this a great place to get engaged if you care about the future development of the city (which is happening at pace!), despite all the disruptions and aggravation for many, we are progressing and there is a lot on the table to consider. I encourage you to get involved and support the conversation. See our article about the Albert to Victoria Park Linear Park, Te Hā Noa. Go to theurbanroom.com to find out more about Ben and how to get onboard.
Having picked olives this past weekend I thought I’d share a bit about olive brining. We have some larger olive varieties at our place, rather than extracting oil from these, we brine them. You may find a good crop of olives in your neighbourhood that are suitable for eating – don’t be afraid to ask if you can pick them. You can always offer a jar of lovely olives back when they’re ready!
There are various methods for brining, but the essentials are the same: clean jars, water, salt and time! Some recipes call for changing the salt and water brine regularly (once a week) for the first month or so, others leave the olives in the original brine. I opt for changing the brine 2 times over the period of the first month. You may wish to cut a clean slit into one side of the olive before brining (you will know this from eating kalamata olives) – it’s an ‘optional extra’, which we are trying out this year. After the olives are preserved you can then think about flavouring them – infusing them with your preferred mix of herbs, chilli, citrus, garlic, vinegar and olive oil. This is a ‘stage 2’ process and a great way to add fragrant herbs from your garden to your harvest.
Brining Olives
You need to brine the olives within a relatively short period of time after picking them. Be sure you have enough time to complete the process and you have jars and salt at the ready.
When you’re set, pick your crop. Keep them out of the sun as you’re picking (not a problem with that in Auckland at the moment!).
Wash the olives in a bath of cold water to remove leaves, dirt, insects and then drain and sort them. Select the best olives (with the least amount of imperfections or bruising). Put them into a large container of cool water. Leave them in the dark (maybe the garage or somewhere similar). Drain the water the next day and let them rest again in a fresh cool bath, repeat this for a week or more (until you have time for brining). This cool bath treatment helps extract bitterness from the olives. It is not essential, you can go straight to the brining process if you don’t have time or don’t want the fuss of regular water changing. You can keep them for up to a month if you change the water daily.
To brine: With a sharp knife cut a slot in the olive if you wish to do this (it makes the curing process a little quicker). Into your sterilised jars pack in your clean olives as tightly as you can, then pour over your cool brining liquid, let it overflow the jar a little, then screw on the lid tightly. It’s important the olives are submerged and not floating above the brine. Change the brining liquid every 2 weeks for the first month. Allow them to cure for a minimum of 4 months – they may take longer.
After this time you can look at recipes for flavouring your olives! Or just eat them and cook with them as they are.
Bon appetit!
Alison
Sketchers’ Symposium 2023
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Harvest Season
It’s that time of year again! Waiheke Island is home not only to our many famous vineyards, (who by now will have completed their ‘récolte’ – harvest), but also to numerous olive groves. Every year at harvest time, locals and visitors alike come together to pick the olives and celebrate this 
special season. Picking is not only fun, but also an excellent opportunity to come together with community, meet old and new friends and learn about olives! Waiheke Island produces some of the best olive oils in the world, thanks to its unique climate and soil. And we are proud to stock some of these oils in store at Scarecrow. Ask the team about our olive oil selection next time you’re in.
Pathways to the Future
You may have noticed the presence of orange cones outside Scarecrow… these mark the beginning of the Albert Park to Victoria Park Greenway, Te Hā Noa, connecting our neighbouring Albert Park to Victoria Park.
The project will take a couple of years to complete, but we are very excited to see the foundation work beginning. I believe it will be a fantastic asset for our city, helping drive our city forward toward becoming a greener, more connected, sustainable and liveable place.
On Victoria St West the Greenway will feature a couple of significant sculptures, welcoming passengers exiting the new city rail link and adding to the cultural and aesthetic appeal of the pedestrian space.
Something really new will emerge that city residents and visitors alike will enjoy for years to come. As avid supporters of creating a liveable inner city, we can’t wait to experience the finished result!
JASMAX, architectural designers of the project, describe the vision eloquently:
A vibrant and connected city centre
Set to become a distinctive urban corridor, the Te Hā Noa Victoria Street linear park will create a thriving public outdoor space supporting walking, cycling and public life to enhance the wellbeing of people and the city’s natural environment.
Addressing the current deficit of attractive, safe, pedestrian friendly urban spaces in the central city, Te Hā Noa is part of a future ‘Green Link’ that will extend from Wynyard Point to the Domain, a key component of the Auckland City Centre Masterplan’s midtown precinct.
The design delivers on the vision for a more vibrant and connected city centre by transforming Victoria Street into a two-laned thoroughfare characterised by wide footpaths, cycle lanes, shade trees, furniture, and native planting for stormwater management, ecology, and beauty. The linear park stretches from Waikōkota (Freeman’s Bay/Victoria Park) to Rangipuke (Albert Park) and will showcase the cultural heritage and unique identity of Tāmaki Makaurau.
Seasonal Mediterranean Tart from our Autumn Menu
We think our Mediterranean Tart featuring olive tapenade, caramelised onions and vegetable ribbons is really elegant and a perfect lunch for the harvest season – we have it available with either white anchovies (a real treat) or crumbly sheep’s feta. It is proving to be popular – and now we have let the secret out of the bag, we hope you’ll come in to try it.
Another delicious addition is our menu is the Harvest Toastie – it’s a stunning vegan toastie featuring pumpkins and walnuts – what a gorgeous and satisfying combination!
And another reminder – we have already talked about one of our latest additions to the menu, Green-Lipped Mussels in a Creamy White Wine & Miso Sauce with Buttered Toasted Sourdough – and we are thrilled to report these have quickly become a popular favourite among our customers. Our mussels are sustainably farmed in the pristine waters of four key regions: Stewart Island, Marlborough, Golden Bay/ Tasman Bay and the Coromandel, ensuring that they are not only delicious but also environmentally friendly. Our Green-Lipped Mussels are cooked to perfection and served with a delicious sauce that perfectly complements their natural flavour. If you haven’t had the chance to try this dish yet, we highly recommend you do so soon. Come visit us at Scarecrow soon!
Doc Edge Film Festival
Doc Edge Festival kicks off again next month! From 24 May – 9 July. NZ is lucky to have such a high caliber documentary film festival which has won international acclaim for its careful selection of films and its readiness to show complex documentaries that others may not be brave enough to screen. We hope you get along to the Capitol Theatre in Mt Eden and support this festival which showcases many of the best documentaries from around Aotearoa and the world. Mark the evening of 26 April in your diary, as this year’s line-up of Doc Edge Festival films will be announced at Auckland’s SkyCity Theatre at the screening of the controversial “The UnRedacted”. Find out more at docedge.nz.
Auckland Writer’s Festival
Also starting in May is the Auckland Writers’ Festival. For two weeks from 16th May, the Writers’ Festival brings together the best of local and international writers of contemporary fiction and non-fiction. There are over 200 events wrapped around this year’s festival, a wonderful opportunity for locals and visitors alike to celebrate together the world of books and ideas. See the line-up and grab your tickets now from Auckland Writers Festival • 2023.
The main venue for the Writer’s Festival is the Aotea Centre, just a hop, skip and a jump from us – so do come by for brunch, lunch or afternoon tea and get your neurones well-nourished for the brainwork you’ll be doing!
A Sneak Peek Ahead…
In other exciting news… our iconic Wikitoria Building is being repainted. In recent months, we challenged our friend, designer Peter Were (Peter is responsible for the gorgeous interior at Scarecrow), to come up with a new look for Wikitoria. New, yet celebrating the history of the building, to tie in with our beloved Albert Park and mark the beginning of the Linear Park. Prep work has begun and we anticipate being able to show you the finished product in the next month or so.