Top-quality condiments and dressings to enhance all your food, every day!

The kitchen has always been the busiest room in Rae Towers’ house but now, it’s set to get even more hectic! Rae has always been a keen chutney and sauce maker – and eater – with several favourite condiment recipes that make use of surplus fruits and veges every year. When offered the chance to take over long-established Waikato business CuisineScene New Zealand earlier this year she and her husband, Neale, jumped at the opportunity. So Rae and Neale – also a good cook – will be be spending the next few months in the kitchen, testing new recipes for CuisineScene’s ever-popular range of delicious condiments and sauces, when they are not too busy packing and dispatching the products to homes and businesses all over the country.

It was CuisineScene’s reputation as a producer of only the very finest pantry staples that tempted the Towers’ to buy the business earlier this year. “I’d always loved the range and had been a customer for many years” Rae says. “I’ve always enjoyed the lovely rich, intense flavours and the fact that you only need the tiniest splash of the Red Wine Vinaigrette, or a spoonful of the Garlic and Chive Aioli, to liven up any meal. The range includes old-fashioned favourites such as Crab-apple Jelly and Vintage Chutney alongside brand new flavours like the Hot Italian Oil, with its chilli kick, or the tangy Black Raspberry Vinaigrette, fast becoming a best-seller. Customers like the fact that the products are not extended with fillers, or watered down, but are the real deal – just fruit and vegetables, spices, sugar and vinegars cooked slowly until the flavours are blended and concentrated.”

More about CuisineScene…

A team of “women of a certain age”, as Rae describes her cooks, whip up steaming batches of chutneys and salsas, and gallons of vinaigrettes and splashes in their fully registered kitchen north of Hamilton. Using only the freshest, naturally ripened seasonal ingredients, and traditional recipes with a distinctly New Zealand twist, the results are always mouth-watering – not to mention sometimes addictive!

A case in point is the “world-famous in New Zealand” Red Wine Vinaigrette, which has a following all of its own. “We have loyal customers who regularly order our 2-litre flagons of this gorgeous dressing every two months. One customer even confessed to me that she eats it out of the bottle with a spoon!” Rae laughs. Other popular products include the Passionfruit and Lemon Curd – perfect on pancakes, pavs and meringues – and the Bloke’s Smokey Stout Chutney, brimming with fruit, real stout, and a hint of hickory.

Although supplying both trade and private customers keeps her busy, along with her regular stall at the Tamahere Market, Rae suggests there will be more products added to the range over the coming months. Food is, she says, in the Towers family’s blood – her eldest son is a well-regarded chef in Melbourne, and another of her three children has a “delicious secret-recipe pasta sauce” she is desperate to prise from him! “And we’re always happy to consider product requests from our customers,” Rae says.