Makers and Growers
- Hunter Valley Part 3
Hola from the Hunter Valley! No, not the Hunter Valley of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is, in fact, the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. As we made our way up the drive of Casa La Vina we half expected the Three Amigos to be facing down El Guapo's me...
- Hunter Valley Part 2
Please join me for another jaunt around the wine-producing region of the Hunter Valley. I am sure it will make you as green as the rows of vines that lace the landscape. As you may recall, I was one of three lucky bloggers selected to report to you, d...
- Welcome To The Hunter Valley - Part 1
When Hunter Valley Tourism announced they were on the hunt for three Ambassador Bloggers to report about some of the finds in the wine growing region that is a mere 45 minutes by car from my front gate, I entered. If I die not winning another competiti...
- Udder Delight
Milk is getting some old-school treatment up in the Hunter Valley. Family operated Udder Farm Dairy at Luskintyre is packaging up non-homogenised cow’s milk in glass bottles and by-passing Coles-worths to sell direct to local corner stores. When c...
- Nicola & Gerry's Tomato Chilli Jam
I had a plan to make tomato chutney as Christmas gifts when a funny thing happened. On returning Gerry’s great-uncle’s confectionery recipe book I inadvertently stumbled into an annual tomato chilli jam cook-off. One of Gerry’s friends...
- Lost Confection
My friend Gerry had a great-uncle, Norman Thomas Brown, who was a confectionery maker in Sydney. Mr. Brown was born into a family with a long food lineage that included bakers, pastry cooks and cordial manufacturers. He catalogued all his recipes in a ...
- Swallowing Clouds
Someone once told me that the translation for the Chinese word wonton translates to swallowing clouds. If that’s true I could not imagine a more delicious way to eat condensed water vapour. Our favourite Chinese food is dumplings - of any kind; ji...
- Bread Subscription
A recent exhibition at Newcastle Library, Eat History, displayed archival photographs of the city’s food and cooking heritage. The idea of this exhibition appealed in equal measure to both the history and cooking nut inside of me. While our lives hav...
- Subo, Newcastle
When I first heard that a new restaurant was slated to open in Newcastle by a former Australia’s Lexus Young Chef of the Year winner, who spent his formative years training under Tetsuya Wakuda, Guillaume Brahimi and Warren Turnbull at Assiette, my e...
- Fosterton Farm
Simon Brownbridge and Loo Boothroyd operate Fosterton Farm, a biodynamic mill, bakery and beef farm just outside the main centre of beautiful Dungog in the Hunter Valley. Since they chanced upon the farm nearly nine years ago, they realised its potenti...
- Millthorpe
On our way back home from Orange we detoured via the heritage township of Millthorpe. Everyone recommended we go. By all accounts there were some great places to eat and some shopping to be had. On our way we stopped off at Millthorpe Truffles, a tr...
- All About Orange
While Dean and I were in Orange for the Australian Cider Awards we decided to discover more of what was on offer during our brief stay. We soon realised only ever having driven through Orange on our way to Dubbo some years earlier was a mistake. Orange...
- The Great Decider
My first experience with cider is one that will most likely be shared by many others. It involves being underage, overzealous and out of my depth. ‘Tis the reason I avoided it at all costs…until recently when a friend of mine was diagnosed with coe...
- Nortenhof Boer Goat Stud
During the 1800s, Paterson, like many other river towns in the Hunter Valley, was a valuable supply of cedar for the growing towns of Maitland, Newcastle and further afield, Sydney. As landholdings grew over time so too did the variety of crops that we...
- Shaun Presland at Millfield Hall
This week has an inadvertent Japanese theme that I am really excited to share. My experience cooking Japanese food to date includes a grand total of two dishes: miso soup and sushi rolls. So I was really excited to learn that Shaun Presland, Executive ...
- Bourke Street Bakery
A day in Sydney afforded me the opportunity to visit an old haunt - Bourke Street Bakery. This time I went to the Marrickville outpost to stock up on sourdough, pork & fennel sausage rolls and of course a beef pie for Dean. Owners David...
- To Market, To Market
Sometimes I love cooking with my kids. I find they are more likely to eat what’s cooked if they’ve had a hand in making it and I like hearing the questions they come up with about ingredients, why things are done a certain way and seeing them piece...
- Varenyky
About five years ago I researched my family history to determine if there was any truth to the family rumor that there was Chinese heritage on my father’s side. It turns out that my great-great-grandmother was illegitimate and the father’s name was...
- Bistro Dalby: Chef Justin Rose
So, I’ve managed a second special lunch out in as many weeks, this time with my mother-in-law. Any feelings of guilt went out the window when I reminded myself that I haven’t had a meal that doesn’t involve ordering a kid’s chicken nuggets and ...
- Margan Estate: Chef Josh Davidson
In a quest to explore areas of the Hunter Valley besides Pokolbin, my Mum and I headed off on a road trip last week to Broke, population 540. Word on the street was Margan Estate have marvelous wines and an exceptional restaurant that benefits from a o...
- Alice's Kitchen
You know when you meet someone whose job seems such a natural fit, that you can’t imagine them doing anything else? When I met Alice this time last year, I never in a million years considered that the person responsible for the muffins I was buying o...
- Redgate Farm
This story began as a quest for fresh chicken livers and ended up being all about quails. Let me explain. I’ve been hoping to make pate for a while now, so when my search for fresh chicken livers came to naught, I asked a local restaurateur where ...
- Bread, Cake and Juice
Our weekend in the Blue Mountains continues. We fuel up on a hearty breakfast and excellent coffee from The Elephant Bean in Katoomba before wandering a few doors down to a local favourite, Hominy Bakery. I was in for two surprises here. The first was ...
- Chocolate, Lollies, Cider & Bread
Following on from our trip to Bilpin in the Blue Mountains, we arrived in the town of Leura in the late afternoon. With only a short time before the shops closed for the day’s trading, we went for a wander down The Mall. Leura has always catered for ...
- Herbie, Bourdain, Gill & The Dip
Last Thursday I had myself a food-love adventure in Sydney. The motivation was the Sydney Writers Festival. I was anticipating a war of words between US chef, author and host of TV show No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain and acerbic UK food critic AA Gi...
- Pukara Estate Olive Oil
Do you ever wonder what was filling the supermarket shelves before olive oil came along? It’s not been that long since the cooking oil of choice was limited to sunflower or vegetable. Now the ubiquitous extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), virgin olive oil...
- Hunters & Gatherers
A funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I received a message from a Twitter friend who had won a competition through our local ABC radio station to take 10 friends to the Hunter Valley for a day of feasting… and I was one of the 10 names she pu...
- The Prawns That Nearly Got Away
My grandfather Charlie and his brother Eddie built a little fibro house one block from Bateau Bay beach on the Central Coast of New South Wales. This is where we would stay for summer holidays. I would sleep next to my cousins on a squeaky spring bed on the enclosed verandah. The bathroom was outside and open on one side with a twin tub washing machine that took up most of the space. Other tiny fibro cottages in varying pastel colours surrounded us. Local amenities were meager. There was a park with swings, where if you stood too long in the same spot you were guaranteed to get bitten by green ants. Across the road was a set of shops that sold fresh bread, milk, hot chips, 10-cent lolly bags and the newspaper. The soil was grey and powdery and it coated everything from your feet to the lino floor in the kitchen.
- Alice’s Valentine Meringue Cakes
My lovely friend Alice Lees operates Uprising from a specially designed kitchen in her house in the suburbs. Check out her blog to follow her progress as she conjures up the most incredibly tasty-looking sweet treats for local cafes and restaurants. Pe...
- Sprocket Roasters
The days when the BHP steelworks once dominated Newcastle’s inner-city skyline combined with the ever-growing coal loading port affords Newcastle with a reputation as an industrial city. The young team behind Sprocket, an inner-city café on Hunter S...
- A Plan For Pudding
While it’s easy to bemoan Christmas decorations going up in shopping centres as early as October, preparation really is the key to sailing through this special time of the year as smoothly as possible. With calendars ever full of work deadlines, e...
- The World Is Your Oyster
People love them, hate them, or worse, are so befuddled by their origin and appearance that they don’t dare try them. This is a great pity because oysters are like summer in a shell. When I was very little we’d drive along the car-sick inducing ...
- Farmer’s Gate
When I was in primary school, mum and dad would often head off on long drives to the country side on weekends, no doubt to escape the mayhem of the older teenagers in the family. Being the youngest I would invariably be packed up in the car along with ...
