It’s a sunny Thursday when I arrive at the farm, early enough in the summer that the warm weather is still a novelty. The space smells of a heady fusion of hay from the bales I’m sat on, wildflowers from the table and smoke from the cooking pit, from which Peter is soon brandishing a platter of farm sausages, the perfect accompaniment to the giant pot of tea that Henri soon appears with.
I’ve been to a lot of vegetable farms over the past five years, most of them ranging from 0.5 - 5 acres in size. But when I heard about Plowright Organic and that they were growing on 30 acres of land, my ears pricked up and I figured it was time for a visit.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a lot of time on farms; I’ve got used to the way things work, the way they operate. But occasionally, I stumble across somewhere different, somewhere a bit special. Model Farm falls firmly into that category. They tick a lot of the boxes with their organic and pasture reared certifications, but I was itching to visit and see the farm for myself.
Step two in my locavore Christmas adventure was to source the vegetables to go with my duck. I get a weekly vegetable half share from my local CSA, the wonderful Sims Hill. But I realised this wasn’t going to be enough to feed myself and my parents, and leave me with vegetables for the rest of the holiday period, and so decided to supplement this with a seasonal box from another local producer, the Community Farm.
I used to think making good coffee was buying ground coffee rather than instant. Moving to Canada, I found myself in a country where everyone ground their own beans, had preferred local roasters and blends, and used a stove top expresso maker or fancy machine. The problems with good coffee is that once you’ve experienced it, it’s really hard to go back…
Breakfast heaven to me is a bacon sandwich; thick rashers of back bacon sandwiched between lovely fresh bread. Living in Canada, I craved decent back bacon (they seem to favour the streaky kind), so when I got back to Bristol and stumbled across some amazing back bacon stocked in a shop round the corner, I enquired of its origins. Sandridge Farmhouse you say? A visit was most definitely in order.
I remember fields of rape from my childhood, vast swathes of yellow covering the countryside in the early summer. I never really thought about what it was used for until recently, when I started looking into local alternatives to my olive oil habit. While I’m not going to completely give up my mediterranean addiction, I did wonder if there was something more local that I could use alongside it.
I love cheese. On toast, with crackers, a sneaky sliver on its own; I love it all. When I came back to the UK, one of the most exciting foodie things was the availability and affordability of artisan cheese here. At a local food festival in the autumn, I picked up a Bath Soft Cheese, and was instantly hooked on the creamy, soft cheese within. So when I realised how close the farm was, and with Christmas approaching (a perfect time for a cheese board!) I decided a visit was most definitely in order.
Step two in my locavore Christmas adventure was to source the vegetables to go with my duck. I get a weekly vegetable half share from my local CSA, the wonderful Sims Hill. But I realised this wasn’t going to be enough to feed myself and my parents, and leave me with vegetables for the rest of the holiday period, and so decided to supplement this with a seasonal box from another local producer, the Community Farm.
For many people, one of the key parts of the Christmas period is food. Huge roast dinners with all the trimmings, towering plates of mince pies, and abundant cheese boards all feature heavily in my 32 years of Christmas memories, not to mention the days upon days of preparation leading up to the event. With my current locavore focus, I suggested that as part of my present to my parents this year, I’d source the ingredients from local farms. I don't eat a lot of meat, so it's important to me to know where the meat I eat is from, and how it was raised. With this in mind, I set about tracking down exactly where my duck was coming from.
Over the last couple of years, I've come to love kale and the variety of things you can do with it. At this time of year, it's one of the easiest vegetables to get locally, and packed with nutrients. One of my favourite discoveries was when someone taught me to make a massaged kale salad, adding a whole new dimension to my kale repertoire (greatly appreciated when living on a farm where it was on the menu all winter long).
My confession is that I never drank beer until I moved to Canada. Shortly after arriving there, I discovered that unlike the west country, it’s really challenging to find good cider there. Fortunately their burgeoning craft beer scene converted me to the joys of hop and malt based beverages, and spent the next few years exploring the finest tipples from microbreweries in the Pacific Northwest. Upon returning to Bristol, I was delighted to find that the craft beer scene had grown here, and there was a rather splendid brewery just down the road from where I live. Wiper and True kindly invited me to come for a tour, so who am I to turn down such an offer.
Bread is something I eat almost every day, but for years I bought the fairly typical branded loaves stocked in most supermarkets, used to the eternal softness and addictive sweetness that comes with these loaves. It was the writer Michael Pollen who opened my eyes to a deeper understanding of bread and the wonder of sourdough with his book ‘Cooked’. A few years later I found myself living in rural Canada, in possession of my own sourdough culture and churning out four loaves a week of pretty decent bread for the people I lived with. Fortunately, Bristol has recently seen a growth in artisanal bakeries, and the East Bristol Bakery was my first port of call.
