Susanna Freymark
On Saturday mornings at Mongogarie, Don and Rosie Leo are up early.
For three years, every Saturday, they get ready to set up their olive stall at Crawford Square Park for the Casino Lions Farmers Market.
The are herbed olives, olive oil, and tapenade in containers ready to go.
It is the baking of the bread and sweets that takes time and from 4am, they are busy baking.
Rosie makes the stuffed focaccia using olives, sun-dried tomatoes, ricotta, kale, and herbs to flavour the bread.
Don has his focus on the sweets such as cannoli, friands and Alfajores.
The biscuits are made the day before.
To see all this at their farmers market stall, you have to get there quickly. The fresh bread is snapped up.
For 20 years, Rosie and Don used to run Cafe Daleone (where Wild Soul Bakehouse is) so they are used to the pressures of serving fresh food.
It is the olives, though, that are the main product of the business.
The Mongogarie Olive farm has 1300 olive trees. The busiest time at the farm is end of January through to the end of March, Don said.
This is when they pick the olives by hand and use an olive press on the property to make olive oil.
In one day they can press up to 500 kilograms of olives, Don said.
“Olives can sit in a barrel for two years,” he said.
“The olives get sweeter in the fermentation process.”
Their customers like knowing where the olives are grown and that there are no preservatives in the olives.
“You can taste test them,” Don said. They sell lemon garlic olives, chilli garlic and other flavours.
“So many people have said – ‘We have never had olives like yours’,” Rosie said.
“I like it when children eat olives.”
Visit the Casino Lions Farmers Market on Saturdays 8am–11am in South Casino.
Get there early for the bread, biscuits and olives.
Read about the other stallholders:
Get locally grown tea tree oil
Go nuts at the market