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+ a view of my market stall, with up to date product (19/12/2008 - 22:21:25)

+ (27/11/2008 - 22:12:43)

a view of my market stall, with up to date products

we are as you can see continuing to add new products to our stall, very soon there will be preserved lemons, candied grape juice, chili flakes, dried morel mushrooms.
dried oranges, mandarins and lemons (for decorative purposes only) and much more

back at whitecross street market after being away for 2 months

it was nice to get back to whitecross street after being away for so long, eric was his usual jovial self, helping everyone

it was good to set out my stall especially with all my new stock, which drew a lot of attention, lots of people tasting my 6 different types of olives produced and prepared by me and my family as well people tasting my infused olive oils and preserved lemons

i sold quite a lot of olives (especially the chakistes which we prepare with garlic/dry cracked corriander seeds and small pieces of lemon) as well as some preserved lemons and paprika, the most important thing for me was the fact that people asked if i would be there in the following weeks

as long as people like what i produce, i will continue to do so to the best of my ability, i will have to go back to the farm soon in order to catch up with work as well as preparing my next batch of preserved lemons

i am hoping to venture into producing on my farm hot chilli flakes, baby walnut candy, watermelon candy, seville orange candy, eggplant candy, quince jam, bergamut marmalade, as well as buying in carobs and carob mollasses which you should try blending one to three with tahin (sesame paste) and spread it on your toast for breakfast it will keep you going for the best part of the day

i have also enquired with some of the local ladies who make real pommegranate mollasses, this is made by boiling pommegranate juice over a log fire reducing it and adding salt as you go this is called black lemon juice in Turkey and is brilliant on salads and in stews etc, made in this way i am told it has a 5 year shelf life

the only draw back is that it takes 12 kilos of pommegranate juice to make 1 kilo of mollasses, this will obviously be a lot dearer than the mollasses that i sell at the moment, which is commercially produced and only contains a small amount of real juice, my plan is to have 10 kilos made so i can bring it over and see what the response will be

see you all at whitecross street market soon

chateau carman october 2008

just returned from my farm in Turkey, where i spent a thoroughly enjoyable and hard working one month
i had my first two lots of guests stay for 2 weeks each
marge and eric stayed in the 2 bedroom apartment which has now been named margic after the two of them
and the 2 alans stayed in the main house
having them all as guests actually made it into a thoroughly enjoyable holiday for me
they would on most days disapear in their hired cars and visit beaches as well as historical places
i believe thay had a new experience in shopping at the turkish markets especially with the help of my sisiter in law who was visiting from Cyprus at the time
we would all gather around the swimming pool on most evenings and take it in turn to cook or we would all dine down by the lake at the alila hotel, where they serve wonderfully fresh and very tasty food

olive oil and olives
i loaded all my produce onto the lorry for delivery to the uk, where once i recieve it i will start to package my olives which we have prepared in 5 different ways
i will also bottle my extra virgin olive oil which i infused one batch with freshly picked mandarins and the other batch with freshly picked lemons all from my own citrus trees
i have also produced and prepared on the farm my own organic sweet paprika which has been prepared with pure olive oil and salt, this is also naturally sundried
i have bought in locally produce such as pine nuts, senna leaves, wild rosehip, wild oregano and frankincense
which i will be packaging and selling in line with my olive oil and olives

lemon produce
we have this year produced in th region of 50 tons of lemons on the farm, which we sell locally although
i have had 800 of my mandarin trees grafted into lemons
this will ensure that my crop in 3 to 4 years will be in the region of 150 tons
anyone in the market for lemons
i also spent quite a lot of time cutting down mulberry trees for their branches and using them to prop up our overladen olive and lemon trees
i will add some pictures soon
again many thanks to marge and eric as well as the 2 alans

food hero

This is a recent article that appeared on the tiscali website with the heading food heros, this makes me extremely proud thank you

The best olive oil you'll ever taste
We all have at least one, a "go to" supplier of amazing food, a neighbourhood restaurant where the cooking is fantastic and you don't have to sell body parts to afford a meal or a bar where they make life changing cocktails and you can always get a seat.

Well, now is the time to start spreading the love by sending us details of your secret treasures so we can share them with the rest of the country. Just tell us who they are and why you think they deserve recognition and we will do our best to make sure they receive the acclaim you think they deserve. I'll start the ball rolling by letting you in on my secret source for some of the most delicious olive oil and olives in the country sold not in a smart delicatessen or high street supermarket, but from the back of shop selling fuses, plugs and cables.

Mehmet Murat, owner of Embassy Electrical Supplies in London's fashionable Clerkenwell, is of Turkish Cypriot extraction and after inheriting olive groves from his parent's small farm in Lurugina, started selling the oil and olives from his small shop under the name Murat Du Carta. The venture was so successful that he purchased another property in Turkey and planted a grove of a further two thousand trees to meet demand.

In 2007, a passing journalist for New York Magazine discovered the shop and declared the oil "England's best". I can't claim that as, despite my best efforts I have not tried them all, but I can tell you that Murat Du Carta is stunning stuff, deliciously green and fresh, the perfect oil for salad dressings, drizzling over pasta or even just sopping up with chunks of crusty bread.

If you live in London, it is well worth popping into Mehmet's shop. He is always happy to give sample tastes and to tell you more about his oils. If you live further away, check out his website at www.planetmem.com or contact him at:
EMBASSY ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES
76 Compton Street
London
EC1V 0BN

TEL: +44 (0) 20 7251 4721

The great olive oil fraud

Murat Du Carta / Chateau Carman

Producers of extra virgin olive oil, table olives and citrus fruit from our groves in Cyprus and Turkey

Tel 020 7251 4721

Email axipa@aol.com

Website www.planetmem.com

The great olive oil fraud

For many years now we have been led to believe that most commercially produced olive oils are the best and most pure available, unfortunately we were in some cases deceived

In previous years Olive oil from the supermarkets was all that was available to most of us, unless you was one of the lucky ones as I was to have 2 x 25 liter containers shipped to us every year from our own groves in Cyprus, we would share our gift with members of our family as they would share theirs

The rest of our produce would be sold off to the co operatives, who would ship it off to the commercial producers mainly in Italy for blending and repackaging

Many olive oils sold in British supermarkets are blended from a variety of different oils and the acidity levels chemically adjusted in order that they can be labeled extra virgin olive oil

Some of these commercial producers have been found to have blended their oils with cheap hazelnut oil as well as or with sunflower oil

It is also a fact that they have been importing olive oil from Spain, Greece, Tunisia and Turkey, blending it and marketing it as superior Italian olive oil

They have also been importing olives from the other olive producing countries and producing olive oil and marketing it as superior Italian olive oil (please note that the best olive oil is made with olives that have been picked within 24 to 36 hours, I doubt very much whether they can pick and ship olives from countries such as Tunisia and press olive oil within 36 hours).

I urge you to read the articles regarding this great fraud by clicking on the links below

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1580807/Italian-police-crack-down-on-olive-oil-fraud.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller

I have written this article so that people can see that they have not in all cases been buying the genuine item

Most genuine producers are finding it difficult enough marketing their genuine products at realistic prices

Bearing in mind the higher costs of looking after the trees, as well as the cost of packaging and transportation

in my case my costs of transporting my oil from Cyprus is in excess of £1 per liter, add to that the cost of looking after the trees, harvesting the olives , taking to the press, packaging and marketing etc.

How on earth are supermarkets in the UK able to sell for example a one liter stone capped glass bottle of olive oil labeled as extra virgin olive oil produced in Tuscany, Italy, which I have sometimes seen on special offer at £3.99

In my case it is not cost affective to get organic certification, although everything I produce is to organic standards, might it be an idea to create an independent organization of small olive oil producers, or is there one already in existence?

please rest assured that my olive oil is from my olive groves in Cyprus and Turkey where myself or members of my immediate family not only look after the trees but also pick the olives when they are green or turning purple and take to the press within 24 to 36 hours at the most

For those of you with any doubts, you are more than welcome to book a stay on my olive groves in Turkey and see at first hand, depending on the time of year the looking after of the olive trees or come Oct / Nov the picking and the pressing.

I then have the oil and my table olives transported to the UK where I sell it through my shop in clerkenwell as well as at whitecross street market and through the internet You are more than welcome to put my oil through any test you like; it is pure extra virgin single estate oil and only available from me directly

Regards mem

Nov visit to Cyprus and Turkey

just got back from first Cyprus, where olives were non existent this year apart from maybe just enough to provide for the immediate family
and then Turkey where we picked and prepared over 3 tons of olives the size of small plums, after picking we select the black olives for the table where we wash and put into a container with dry salt and allow to cure, and the green turning black olives for the table but in a different method where we cut each olive slightly lengthways 3 times and put into salt water and citric acid to cure
the olive oil that we produced in Turkey this year was naturally infused with freshly picked lemons and another batch with freshly picked mandarins you should have smelt the aroma at the press, we had all the locals committing themselves to doing the same next year, we should have our delivery by april 2008
we will be at whitecross street market on the first friday and saturday of december, our stall will be open until 9 pm on the friday



my 84 year old mum who planted these trees in Cyprus back in 1950 when she was carrying me

i will be abroad until the 21st of oct

if anyone wishes to purchase any of our goods please note i will not be able to deal with it until i return on the 21st of oct 2007

i apologise for any inconvenience but will deal with it promptly on my return

getting better

friday the 5th and saturday the 6th is the best yet people are getting to know us and returning for repeat orders i am now offering free olives with purchases of our 1 liter and 2.5 liters of oil, so sales are up

we have now introduced our own green and black olives which rather than selling prepacked, we are now preparing and packing at the point of sale

we have also increased our sales of dried olive leaves, which people are buying for either making tea, or burning as an incense and more recently someone has purchased some for burning at the alter

the next whitecross street food market is the first friday and saturday of november, its getting better, so come and get a bargain

sunday the 29 july 2007

Really good atmosphere at whitecross street , lots of tastings, lots of interest

sold a fair quantity of olives as well as olive oil and pomegranate sour.

some of the comments as well as questions were as follows

1 your olives are too salty
2 are your olives cured in lye as my daughter is allergic to these olives
3 your olive oil is very light
4 is it organic
5 what olive tree is your oil produced from
6 why do you package your oil in plastic, does this not degrade the oil

1 this week i served up slices of orange and offered them as a taster together with my olives, people were amazed at the combination, but this is what my parents and relatives used to bring to the fields as their pack lunch, peasant food try it with my salty olives you will be amazed

when ;they were working in the fields harvesting whatever, depending on the season these are some of the food items that they would take with them, but there would always be olives and hellim, and they would all go really well with black salty olives

fresh broad beans, artichoke, cucumber, tomatoes, hellim, red melon, fresh bread, hard boiled eggs, radishes, kol rabbi, raw cauliflower and if they found any nettles in the fields well that was an extra treat they would cut the tender part and peel the outer skin that would leave a tender succulent stalk which would also go with olives
so from now on you will see some of the above being offered as a taster on my stall

2 my olives are cured in salt and nothing else you can normally tell the salt cured olives as they go wrinkly, the firm fleshed olives that you normally buy are cured in lye (another name for lye is caustic soda) they are then flushed and boiled for a few minutes, some people are allergic to this so beware

3 my olive oil is very light it is so light it is almost drinkable, it is also very fresh and aromatic

4 my olive trees are looked after by close relatives who spread natural compost from their herds of cows and sheep
they also prune the trees once a year and cut away the suckers, the groves are in a part of cyprus which recieves very little rainfall, we do not water them or spray them, they are hardy little trees

so they are grown to organic standards but i have no certification, this is partly due to the north of the island not being recognised as well as the recognised government of cyprus making it very difficult for the turkish cypriot community to get any certification or recognition or transport to the outside world etc, i have my oil and olives transported overland through Turkey

5 my olive trees are known as the cyprus olive tree, and yes there is such a tree

6 the pet bottles i use are of such a high quality it will not impair the quality or the flavour in any way whatsover, in fact do not be decieved by some of the fancy bottles that are used to package oil nowadays
if you visit the presses during the appropriate months you will see most of the oil producers waiting there turn to have there olives pressed
you will see them transferring the oil to mostly 25 litre plastic jerry cans which are then taken away and allowed to settle prior to filtering and bottling

i hope the above information is helpful to you, see you at whitecross street market this friday and saturday

sat 28th july

saturday we sold three times the amount that we sold on friday, it was an interesting day with lots of interest, lots of tastings and a lot of feedback from what we sold at the previous events

people were coming back and telling us how good our oil is, so thank you everyone

eric the master butcher was demonstrating how to butcher a pig, which he done with great expertise and speed oh and the band that was playing for us were superb, i feel it gave the event a touch of class

hope to see you there tomorrow (sunday)

lots of interest on the official opening of whitecross st market 27 july 07

lots of people tasting and making positive comments on the quality of the oil and olives a few made comments regarding packaging good olive oil in plastic (please note that the pet bottles we use do not impair the olive oil in any way ) we continue to bottle it in this manner because it is £2 per litre cheaper, so the saving is all yours although we do bottle our oil in quality dark green glass bottles

we have displayed our black dry cured olives with segments of orange, please try our olives in combination with orange it really is a different taste

hope to see you there on sat and sunday the 28th and 29th

regards mem

i was quite pleased with our 2 days at the whitecross street food fair on the 6th and 7th of july, we sold a few bottles of oil as well as olives and pomegranate sour

i feel we are there to stay at the one monthly events, we made an impact and it is all about getting yourselves known and trusted

the 3 day event is on the 27th 28th and 29th of july when there will be some celebrity tv chefs on hand to show some of there cooking skills

i look forward to seeing you all there

Whitecross street food festival on the 27th 28th and 29th July

http://www.whitecrossstreetmarket.co.uk/

make a day of it

there will be plenty to see and most certainly piles of excellent quality produce to sample

here is your chance to sample our excellent olive oil as well as our black dry cured olives

or sample our pomegranate sour, an excellent alternative to balsamic vinegar

hope to see you there

nov 2006 olive oil finally arrived

i have now received my oil and black olives from nov 2006 produce , i have spent most of the week bottling and packing ready for our first appearance at whitecross street food market

i can assure you that the oil is superb and the olives are top class, i have added some olive oil to theses prior to packing as they are delivered dry

i am afraid that due to increased costs re production and transport we have had to raise our prices

my much awaited delivery of my olive oil has now arrived and i have started bottling, it is now on the shelves

at 76 compton st london ec1v 0bn (i hope you enjoy)

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