Everyday on my way to Surf4Wine HQ, AKA our warehouse, I pass the Q Gardens Farm Shop.

As the name suggests, it is a farm shop, and it sells fruit and vegetables from its own farm that surrounds the shop. (It does great Pick Your Own as well.)

But it doesn't end there, and that is what makes it such a great place to stop off and buy local foods.Yes, they sell their own local veggies and fruits - the surrounding area once teemed with numerous apple and pear orchards until they gradually disappeared as the supermarket cult took over and the great British public dashed headlong for convenience over flavour and local produce. Although thankfully that is beginning to reverse as more and more of us think about where our food comes from, how it gets to us and what goes in it and on it (and just for the record, I'm not anti-supermarkets or anything, they have their place... I just prefer to buy food local wherever possible). The area is still justly famous for its Harwell cherries.

One of Q Gardens Farm Shop's biggest draws, and possibly its best-kept local secret, is its in-house butchers. Well, I've jusy blown their cover! It's a proper butchers with skilled staff, selling locally-reared meat. There'll be a separate post on this in near future, with, hopefully, an interview with the butcher. I want to become good friends with him so I get the lowdown on the very best local meat. Definitely a carnivore me! We bought local rib of beef from them two Sundays back when we had the children's grandparents for lunch - utterly amazing, and I have to say, some of the best beef I have ever eaten. And that includes in some VERY expensive restaurants . It really proved the adage that good ingredients simply cooked really does take some beating. But it's not enough that the butchers has knowledgeable staff and fantastic produce. Best of all? They are open 7 days a week. Supermarket style convenience AND local food. Come on south Oxfordshire, what are you waiting for - buy local and support you local butcher! Indeed, our much-loved and admired Nigel Slater is espousing the virtues of supporting your local butcher on his latest podcast I'm listening to as I write this. I dare you to try Q's butchers and then go back to a supermarket. Yes, it's not as cheap, but you really do get what you pay for with fresh meat these days. (I have, in the dim and distant past when I used to buy meat at the 'meccas of convenience', had to, on more than one occasion, take back supermarket 'fresh' meat as it has gone off WITHIN ITS SELL-BY DATE. Quite scary really - but a very good reason to buy from your local butcher). And with quality comes economy. On Sunday we spent £11 on a free-range chicken. All 4 of us ate it roast on Sunday evening. Alison boiled the bones with carrots, onions, the neck of the bird, two bayleaves and a handful of fresh marjoram to create a stunning stock that made soup (stuffed with local vegetables) on Monday night and a chicken and asparagus risotto on the Tuesday. £11 for 3 meals suddenly doesn't look quite so expensive!

Q Gardens farm shop doesn't just sell your standard meat and veg. They sell local beers too. (We are looking at stocking some of them online too - but hey, I'm happy for competition and like to be transparent about such things!), And local wines (we don't stock any - yet...), local pickles, chutney's, condiments and preserves. You really must try Well Preserved's Award-winning (Great Taste Awards Silver) Seville orange marmalade. Thickly spread on top of some of Upper Norton Dairy's Jersey butter, that in turn is smeared over some of the fresh bread that the Q farm shop sells and you have a perfect accompaniment to your tea or coffee for breakfast.

Talking of breakfast... I stopped to 'Q-shop' (a new phrase in my vocab now for popping into Q Gardens shop as a pass by... funny how I seem to do that quite a lot these days...) last Sunday after unexpectedly appearing on Radio Oxford to review the Sunday papers (Alison was due to do it but a last minute migraine meant she needed an emergency sub, and as Phil Mercer and I have exchanged the odd word over the airwaves I was deemed an acceptable last minute sub.. it was FUN! And quite amazingly, they asked me back. Was it the quip about Ann Diamond becoming President of the National Obesity Society?). Anyway, I bought local bacon and sausages, as well as eggs from nearby Brook Farm (who have fab self-catering cottages), and trotted home with food and papers. Dashing into your local filling station for some long life OJ and Thick Sliced loaf just doesn't have the same allure for a proper Sunday breakfast!

I could go on and on about this foodie heaven, but I think I've whetted your appetite enough to tempt you to pop in next time you are nearby. And to help you find them, here's a map via the Oxford Farmers Market web site above. You won't be disappointed.

Update...
Q Gardens Farm Shop doesn't have a website it seems, but they do deserve a web presence so more people can find out about the wonderful goodies they have in store. And they have lots going on as we move from Spring into Summer with new season fruits, veggies and other tasty offerings. So I've made them a little page here on Surf4Wine. Hope it helps guys :)

Q Gardens Farm Shop page on Surf4Wine - click here

Q-Gardens Farm Shop photo's...Looking at adding some more photos here... the whole photo-taking think is very new to me. What do you think of first efforts above? Anyone any ideas on how i could set up a photo-stream of photo's on this page, as i add new ones. Is Flickr good for that?

When I was at Q Gardens Farm Shop on Steventon Hill on Sunday (they don't have a web site, so I can't link to it here - a great shame as somewhere to show people what they sell would be useful. They are one of my favourite places to buy high-quality local food. Especially now they have their own butchers with excellent local reared meat. Anyway, I digress...), I saw an advertisement for new season's asparagus on the blackboard behind the counter. A quick inquiry and I found out that the first of their outside grown crop would be available in the shop around lunchtime on Monday.

Now, we LOVE asparagus in this house! It is one of the few green vegetables that son Douglas will consume with vigour and enjoy. So, I couldn't wait to get my hands on some. The intention had been to maximise the flavour of this beautiful new-season asparagus by either steaming and serving with melted butter (very traditional), or grilling and serving with Maldon sea salt and Parmesan (all very Jamie Oliver!)

In the event, things didn't go to plan. Yes, I got my asparagus, but by the time I would have been cooking it for supper I was most assuredly not well. So, it stayed in the fridge. Until Alison took it out tonight and combined it with zingy lemons and Arborio rice, plus some of the home-made stock and leftovers from Sunday's chicken. In fact, it was an adaption of Nigel Slater's lemon and Asparagus risotto. Nigel Slater is THE food guru in our house - we are big fans of his sensible, tasty recipes and food writing - his recipes just make you want to cook! In fact, I have just bought Alison his book 'Appetite'... not so much a cook book as a way of cooking. Definitely worth buying.

Anyway, a beautiful creamy risotto was produced. A lovely tang of fresh lemons, tender but still crisp asparagus; a lovely creamy, sticky risotto. Now, I'm not drinking tonight... but I did have some risotto. If ever a dish cried out of for a particular wine, it was this dish yelling and screaming 'find me some Gruner Veltliner'. This little known grape-variety (little known in a sea of Sauvignon and Chardonnay) is most cultivated in Austria and I first fell in love with it on a trip to Austria many years ago.

Good producers Of Gruner Veltliner make wines with a definite minerally style, integrate the natural acidity of the grape, and produce very food-friendly wines. These are wine without oak. Think Riesling but with a more minerally quality, a sightly greener edge and perhaps a bit more weight. We used to have 3 or 4 on our list, but I've just realised don't have a single one at the moment. That will change very soon!

So, with the Asparagus Season just kicking off, take my advice... go down to your local farm shop (it tastes so much better from there than from the supermarket!), grab yourself some fresh asparagus and buy in some Gruner Veltliner and give yourself a real treat. let me know what you think...