Charmian Smith

A Scottish grandmother's cooking inspired several of her grandchildren to enter the hospitality industry. Charmian Smith talks to Iain and Jazz Hewitson about their memories of their grandmother Annie Hewitson's kitchen in Abbotsford, Dunedin.

There's something remarkably satisfying about a good riesling.

Farmers market gets game A couple of new stalls selling game have appeared at the Otago Farmers Market at the Dunedin Railway Station on Saturdays. Great for those who don't hunt but like the flavour and lean healthiness of wild meat.

Sauvignon blanc, New Zealand's best known wine, comes in many styles - from fresh and zingy to barrel fermented and complex.

I sorted through my pantry the other weekend, finding in its depths half-full packets of lentils, pasta, chickpeas, jars of wheat and barley berries, quinoa, couscous, dried beans, tins of stuff for an "emergency", and stacks of Oriental ingredients bought in a fit of enthusiasm and used only once or twice.

While many of us like to explore different still wines, we often go for the same old sparklers, but there's a variety of good bubblies out there.

A handful of tiny vineyards I hadn't come across before were among the winemakers at the first annual Alexandra Basin winegrowers' new-release tasting at Labour Weekend in Clyde.

A couple of Tuturau farmers are fulfilling their dream to re-create an old-style farm dairy, where farmhouse cheeses are produced from the milk of the cows in the adjoining pasture.

The aromas of Marlborough sauvignon blanc can invoke all sorts of memories - flowering gorse on a summer day, freshly cut passionfruit, fresh ripe guavas we ate in India, the infamous cat's pee on a gooseberry bush, fresh sweat, and very often, drops of rain on hot, dusty river stones.

The team at Craggy Range under Steve Smith aim to make wines that speak of where they come from, rather than blending wines of certain styles, so it's not surprising to find they have made five single-vineyard pinot noirs.

• Strawberry fields taking forever... By now we'd normally expect to see local strawberries at the Otago Farmers Market, but the unusually cold spring weather this year has meant they are a week or two behind.

This line-up of pinot gris ran the gamut from wines that tasted like an alcoholic tinned fruit salad to some that suggested sucking on cardboard that had been dipped in fruit juice.

If you thought American food was mainly fast, Jamie Oliver's latest book, Jamie's America (Michael Joseph, hbk, $75) will make you realise there's a lot more to it than hamburgers and fried chicken.

Fans of London-based New Zealand celebrity chef Peter Gordon's fusion cuisine will want to look at his latest book, Culinary Journey

Pot-luck meals are always interesting, especially when the guests are food writers.