MARCH 2008

Also, if you spend £15 in one transaction in the Farm Shop during the birthday week you will receive a voucher entitling you to £5 off your purchases in the Tea Room and it’s valid for the whole of April this year.

Oh, and there’ll be a Prize Draw, too. But at the time of going to press the prize’s identity is distinctly hush-hush. Although rumour has it that Peter will saunter over to the winner’s house, talk about his award-winning tractors and eat the contents of their fridge. But you didn’t hear it from me, right?

Talking about the big fella, he’s only gone and done it again, hasn’t he.

2007 was quite a year for Peter Reade and his beloved little green 1942 Fordson Standard N tractor. Three awards were garnered last year and he started the new show year in Malvern and walked off with a shiny cup, a silver platter and a luscious red rosette for best Fordson in show.

So here’s looking at the possibility of yet more silverware in 2008, and this his own 70^th year, too.

Staying with tractors, on this Easter Sunday Cheshire plays host to the Annual National Vintage Tractor road run. So, if you spot a convoy of beautifully maintained machines and their decrepit old drivers – let’s face it, they’d be hard to miss – cheer them along and go easy on the obscenities.

As usual we’re closed over the Easter weekend (21^st – 24^th March), reopening on Tuesday 25^th March and the start of our birthday week. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but we hope you have an enjoyable extended weekend.

It’s almost Spring and that heralds the start of the Cheshire tomato season. Lovely red, bouncy tomatoes from Frank Rudds of Peover.

Lettuce from Roy Halman’s of Cranage already adorn the chiller shelves in the Shop and the salad plates in the Tea Room.

And then in mid-May Rob Fuller, from Field Fresh Ltd of Nantwich, will again be supplying us with his fantastic fresh veg that last year took the place by storm. Cabbages and cauliflowers that were so big it was like they’d come straight out of a 50’s B-movie. Maybe this year they won’t be so big as to scare folks off but I look forward to them anyway. This year Rob gets his Organic accreditation, too.

And those magnificent New Cheshire Potatoes are not far away at all now. Just a couple of months and the best little spuds in the world will be rolling around your plate and the universe will be a happier place for it.

My name is Graham Ryan and I work in the Farm Shop. I’m the tall, slightly balding one that stands behind the counter looking vague when you first come into The Harvest Store. I asked Trish to write my profile but she came up with just the one word: "idiot". I then asked Margery for her opinion and she replied, "obsessed with beer". So I thanked my fiancée and her mother for their succinct appraisals and decided to write the profile myself.

I’ve been doing this newsletter for over 18 months now, and I enjoy writing it. But what you eventually get to read has had most of the surreal and off-the-wall stuff edited out, so that it reads like an actual newsletter and not something from the pages of Private Eye or a William Burroughs novel.

Writing is, after Trish (obviously), my main passion. After that comes drawing, making my own booze, socialising, reading, and trying new things (be it kudu steaks or ballroom dancing). I write mainly fiction – as regular readers of the newsletter will testify – and the buzz of creating something that makes someone else smile cannot even be matched by flinging oneself from the top of a crane with only a length of knicker elastic preventing me from meeting my maker. Been there, done that.

I’m sure that this year will be my best year ever, as in the autumn I will be getting married to my beautiful fiancée, Trish.

And with any luck I’ll get something published in the next couple of years. But even if I don’t, I’ll still be writing this newsletter and keeping you all up to date with the goings on at The Harvest Store.

Year of the Potato. No matter how many times I say it, it still sounds like a spoof 70’s political thriller. But this year, as you may have read last issue, is, in fact, the United Nation’s International Year of the Potato. And every month I’m putting new recipe cards into the Shop all with something interesting to do with the humble tattie. We started with Colcannon, and now I’ve added two more recipes: Wilja Gnocchi with Thyme and Potato & Leek soup.

The Wilja potato is as good an all-rounder as you’ll find, but tends to be overlooked in favour of the better-known spuds like the King Edwards and the Maris Pipers of the world.

Monday Tea Room & Shop CLOSED

Tue-Fri Tea Room 8am – 4:45 pm

Shop 8am – 5pm

Saturday Tea Room 9am – 4:45 pm

Shop 8am – 5pm

Sunday Tea Room 9am – 3:45 pm

Shop 9am – 4pm