At first light on Sunday morning I crept out of the house, pulled on my rubber boots and went for a long walk around the vineyards and across the paddocks, as I always do when I visit. There is something incredibly special about being under a big morning sky, the air crisp and clean, not another human-being within cooee*. The only sound is warbling magpies.

On this cold winter morning, I greet Lily the deer,

then head out into the paddocks where the sun is just rising above the gums.

I trudge on – up the hillside and past the caves my brothers and I used to play in – spotting a fox that slinks back into his den the moment he spies me.

On to the limestone quarry…another playground that is now much deeper and steeper than I remember, where the ochre light dances and I hear the echo of ‘laughter past’.

At the top of the hill, I pause to look over this precious land, where magnificent red gums throw long morning shadows.

On the other side of the hill, beyond the vines, a mob of kangaroos jumps away as I approach.

At the shearing shed I climb the stairs as I have so many times before, bringing smoko in a basket to the shearers as a child; tea, jubilee cake and sandwiches. The smell of lanolin hangs in the air. This morning the shears are still and silent but it’s easy to conjure in my mind their constant drone, the shed a hive of activity.

The sun shines brighter as I meander through rows of vines,

and head back towards the house paddock.

It was on this very lawn, left of the white wooden fence, that I celebrated my wedding reception in a big white marquee – many moons ago. Oh, how the trees have grown and life has changed…

I throw off my boots and open the door to the smell of bacon. My brother is cooking breakfast with eggs collected this morning. Suddenly I’m famished.

As I walked through the paddocks I had a  flashback to a ‘Winter Morning in Time’, circa 1970…

A morning in time: memories and milking

My breath curls into the crisp morning air as I dig my hands deeper into my parka pockets. I am perched on a wooden railing of the milking shed, swinging my legs in my rubber boots as I watch the warm milk squirt noisily against the cold, steel bucket. It is rhythmical and comforting. The only sound apart from the milk hitting the steel is Clarabelle, a jersey cow the colour of milky espresso, munching on her half bucket of oats.

My father sits on a stump of wood, its seat worn smooth with use, hand milking with a deft proficiency that comes from years of practice. Depending on the amount of feed in the paddock, the house cow produces about a gallon and a half of milk in the morning and a gallon at night … more with the new spring grasses. The sound of milk grows duller and deeper as the bucket fills with frothy warm milk. By the time the soft morning sun caresses my hair and the last drop of milk is shaken into the bucket, I am almost in a trance-like state, hypnotised by the sound of the ritual.

The cats that live in the haystack on the mice they catch are lurking about. My father pours a little milk into their tins near the shed. They lap it up. We walk up the gentle slope of the orchard together, towards the house, milk sloshing precariously close to the rim of the bucket. Jack Frost is still lying on the grass and the winter light throws magic into the morning. We kick off our boots and enter into the warm kitchen where my Scottish grandmother is slowly stirring oatmeal over the fire with her spurtle (porridge stick). Another morning ritual.

A large bowl sits ready on the table and a strong river of milk quickly fills it, foaming and swirling. This bowl has a permanent home on the top shelf of the fridge where it sits and forms a layer of cream that begs to be skimmed off with a spoon. My father likes to eat it on bread with homemade jam. A jug is filled with the remaining milk: raw, real, full-cream milk straight from a happy, coffee-coloured cow. The cereal is on the table. It’s time for breakfast.

*Cooee! is a shout used in Australia, usually in the bush, to attract attention, find missing people, or indicate one’s own location. When done correctly – loudly and shrilly – a call of “cooee” can carry over a considerable distance. The distance one’s cooee call travels can be a matter of competitive pride. It is also known as a call for help.

The post A Morning in Time: Memories and Milking appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

As we chat into the night, my friend Kathy tells me about Metro Bakery & Café, her favourite café in this small regional city that has tongues wagging for all the right reasons.

The next morning we arrive early for breakfast. The Mount is renowned for its cold, frosty mornings but we soon push open a door to a room that is warm and inviting: rustic timber floors, dark wood, jazz playing. We could almost be in Melbourne. And, like Melbourne, the coffee is great.

Metro, derived from the Greek word Metrio, means ‘in the middle’ or ‘meeting place’. It’s the idea of community coming together and it certainly seems true to its name as I watch a loyal band of locals stream through the door, stopping to snatch a quick morning coffee & pastry and to read the morning paper. 

On the counter is a basket of buttery croissants au beurre, made and baked on the premises from a century-old traditional French recipe, and a tray of croissants aux amandes. There seems to be a focus on traditional French baking as well as Greek and Italian and as we wait for our breakfasts I chat to Toni Vorenas – who owns the café with her husband Theo – and find out why.

Photo courtesy of Metro Bakery

‘A French trained pastry chef literally knocked on our door and asked for a job. He had tried every bakery in Mount Gambier. At that time we did not make anything in-house and had no equipment,’ says Toni. ‘He started the bakery with us from the ground up. He brought over another pastry chef, also French trained, to work with him and he is still with us today. We have since hired three local boys who are all learning the skills.’

What began as a simple coffee and sandwich shop has evolved into a thriving European style bakery, café and bar and among the pastries now made in-house you will find pithiviers, mont blancs, opera cakes, escargots, and little lemon and raspberry tartlets.

Photo courtesy of Metro Bakery

‘I am Sicilian and my husband is Greek so our café food is also heavily influenced by our cultures,’ says Toni. ‘Our focus is on tradition – as well as using traditional methods of baking we also make our own sugo (passata) once a year. We use a lot of produce from my father’s garden and we have our own substantial herb garden out the back.’

The croissants aux almonds tempt but I decide on something more substantial and my Metro Big Breakfast arrives. Roasted tomatoes, smoked bacon, Spanish chorizo, sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella and herb potato rosti, basil pesto, and poached eggs with sourdough. Enough to keep me going for the entire day!

Artisan loaves and baguettes are made on the premises, with gluten-free options, and there is traditional baklava, cannoli and tiramisu.

Metro also does interesting light lunches from soups and salads to pasta. There’s a range of gourmet baguette sandwiches served all day, or you may prefer Chickpea & Haloumi fritters, Braised Pork Belly or a Terra Rossa Beef Burger.

Two years ago Metro started opening in the evenings as a dessert bar with plated desserts from the kitchen. ‘We still run the dessert bar but we have also added cafe style dinners,’ says Toni.

Oh, and that croissant aux amandes. I took one to go. It was très bon!

*For more information on the Limestone Coast click here.

The post Metro Bakery & Café appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

But as the French say ‘on ne peut pas faire d’omelette sans casser les oeufs’ (you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs) and soon my scrambled life will be in order. Boxes will be emptied, the barrage of email correspondence and opportunities addressed, publicity for my new book will be in place and a busy trip to Paris organised. In a month I shall be relaxing at a Paris table casting my eye over a French menu. Stay tuned!

Menus are interesting documents. The best fill your senses with pleasure, and seduce. Taste buds dance in anticipation as you devour the delicious words with your eyes. Revealing a glimpse of what is to come, appealing dishes are half-eaten before you even take that first bite.

Just as importantly, each menu tells the story of a time and a place. I find it fascinating how the course of history can be followed through food, and menus have the ability to show clearly how dishes and tastes change with shifting styles, fashions, and cooking techniques. They become testimonials of an era and its trends and flavours.

Tired of unpacking boxes this week I couldn’t help but smile when I opened my Australian Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook from the early 1980s to a glossy page featuring a ‘simple, elegant dinner party menu’. At each place setting is an alarmingly-large round of salmon pâté and in the middle of the table, a platter of Steak Diane with the obligatory ’80s vegetables: bean bundles tied with chives, and tomato halves, herbed and baked in the oven. There’s a recipe for toffee strawberries, so in vogue at the time, while a smattering of French words add a touch of sophistication to the pages, and give that elusive je ne sais quoi.

But it was when I came across my grandmother’s stack of menus that she had kept from a trip back to Scotland on the S.S. Arcadia that I really got distracted. The Arcadia commenced service in 1954, the largest of the P & O ocean liners, sailing from London to Australia and NZ and back via the Trans-Suez and India route.

This treasured stack of elegant, vintage menus are also tasty morsels of history, and on opening the box, I immediately boarded a glamorous P & O cruise ship in the 1950s.

Many of the dishes are written in French and feature classic fare from France and the UK as well as a smattering of plates from around the world. Passengers with a sense of adventure could tuck into an exotic Bangalore Curry with Rice, or Sardines Portugaise while those who played it safe could dine on Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Mint Sauce, Yale Pie or Irish Stew.

Desserts range from Cherry Trifle and Gooseberry Fool to Coupe Parisienne and American Doughnuts with golden syrup. Many of the menus finish with an impressive selection of cheese.

Perusing the wine lists I find dinner recommendations for ‘Chateauneuf-du-Pape, red, 1947′ and Chateau Margaux 1951. How much would those same bottles cost on menus now I wonder? ‘Rhone Wine, Hermitage Red, 1947′ is available by the glass for 1/9 (one shilling and ninepence).

The menus themselves are visually striking and on such a long trip passengers no doubt needed variety and intrigue. A series of 12 paintings of ballets grace the front covers of one set of menus while Royal Residences and Australian Birds adorn the covers of others. Sets of these menus were gladly supplied to passengers who wished to keep them as souvenirs.

In the stack are two menus with extracts from the Diary of Samuel Pepys. A young civil servant in 17th century London, Pepys had a large appetite for pleasure and a insatiable craving for new and exciting experiences. His daily journal entries provide a wonderful glimpse into the life and times, with glorious illustrations to match.

Suddenly I’m very hungry. I think I’ll start with the Potage Longchamps followed by Roast Guinea Fowl Anglaise and finish with Queen’s Pudding.

The post On Vintage Menus appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

For the past seven months all of my worldly possessions have been packed tight in a giant shipping container parked in the middle of a dry, barren paddock. It’s a ridiculous sight and about as far away as you can get from the classic beauty of the Parisian streets I write about. You gotta laugh!

Sweat dripping, I think of Napoleon Bonaparte’s words ‘It is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.’

With a string of 40 degree days it’s like an oven inside the container as we dismantle the tight jigsaw of belongings. The jigsaw of my life. Guzzling water on this hot summer day, my mind flickers to those relaxing at the tennis, the cricket, the Tour Down Under, or an Australia Day barbie with a cold glass of wine.

How much does one really need, I ask myself as I decide what to take to my new home and what to leave behind. In truth, I haven’t missed any of these worldly possessions that have been stored away – or so I tell myself as I fight with furniture and boxes. I have been lighter and free-er without them.

Outside, the sky is a vivid blue and a flock of squawking cockatoos have decorated one of the red-gums like ornaments on a Christmas tree. A classic Australian scene with its own brand of beauty.

As I pull pieces from the container, I ponder whether we shouldn’t be content to admire and enjoy the beauty that exists all around us without having to own it. I have never lived for ‘stuff and things’, they have not defined my life, and yet I do love and appreciate beautiful things. We battle on and I come across mementos of times and places…the Turkish tea set from a trip to Istanbul, the old, battered meat-safe from the farm, the gilded vintage frames from the Vanves flea market. It’s the memories that are triggered from these objects rather than their monetary value that give them their true meaning and make them keepsakes to treasure.

Hmmm…So what goes then and what stays?

I think it’s time for that cold glass of wine.

Happy Australia Day!

(Next week may well be sublime)

The post To Have and to Hold appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

George was the culprit, our pet sheep.

An animal of formidable character and cunning, George was no ordinary sheep. One day, the rams followed him into the garden and started to chase him. He quickly led them towards the swimming pool, skirting around the edge at the last second while they continued straight onto the wobbly pool cover, piercing it with their feet. Do you know how difficult it is to drag three waterlogged rams from a sinking ship?

A very old Jubilee George

Orphaned at birth in 1972 at our property Langkyne, George stood out from the mob from the beginning and unwittingly became a treasured family pet. He refused to associate with other sheep and each time he was introduced back to the paddock he found a way home. An eccentric, he took an instant dislike to little boys who came to visit, taking a big run up and bunting them hard from out of the blue but loved little girls, and walked alongside them chewing their locks.

A gourmand and bon vivant with a sophisticated palate, he spent most of his day in the house paddock where he would nap next to the petrol bowsers, one eye open, waiting for any opportunity to bolt through a gate left open to the garden or the orchard. Along with bites from the veggie patch he had a particular fondness for my mother’s roses and a weakness for juicy plums straight from the tree, spitting out the stones that he sucked bare.

Enhancing his diet with Froot Loops, dog nuts and chook pellets, George took out first prize for his fleece at the local agricultural show at 12 months of age. Despite various attempts by other competitors to weasel out of my father what this champion was bred on, he never did disclose the top-secret information. George went on to win numerous ribbons for his strong merino wool, and his prize-winning fleeces toured Australia and Japan.

With a taste for the limelight, in 1986 at nearly 15 years of age, George became part of the South Australian Jubilee 150 On the Sheep’s Back celebrations. As one sheep year is equivalent to 10 human years, George represented the whole of the state’s 150 years. Rising to his title of Jubilee George, he was chauffeured (on the trailer) from the farm up to Adelaide and went on tour, parading around shopping centres with his head held high, wallowing in his fame. Occasionally the gourmand would sneak a lick of a kid’s ice cream.

On the Sheep’s Back 1986

At night during the tour, he retired to my suburban backyard in upmarket Hyde Park, the same yard that my farmer brother had ceremoniously ‘burnt off’ a couple of years earlier when we first moved in. That’s what you do, don’t you, with long, dry grass? He made a fire break, checked the wind, lit a match and we watched the flames leap and crackle across the yard in a flash, fizzling out at the fence.

My father kept George’s fleeces together to see how much wool he would cut in his lifetime, not realising the interest it would create. By his death in 1988 at age 16 (the average lifespan for a sheep is 5 years), George had amassed enough fleeces to fill a single bale, a unique feat, especially considering he had to be dragged, kicking, to the shearing shed to be shorn.

I was hosting a dinner party at home in Melbourne when the call came. ‘We’ve had a death in the family,’ said Mum. ‘George has passed away’. Dramatically of course, by the bowsers amid a thunderstorm. Devastated, I kept the news to myself, figuring my city guests could not possibly understand.

George is proof to us all that it pays not to follow the mob, but his story doesn’t end there.

George had one final glory. After his death, the tale of his life was displayed at the National Wool Museum along with a perspex bale of wool demonstrating the quality and quantity of each year’s fleece. Unfortunately my brother recently received a phone call to break the news that the bale had become infested with wool beetle and had to be removed, but you can still read his story and raise a glass to dear old George in the Black Sheep Cafe & Restaurant. 

About the National Wool Museum

Situated in Victoria’s largest regional city, Geelong, the museum  is a one-hour drive from Melbourne and near the start of the Great Ocean Road. Visitors are taken back to a time when Australia rode on the sheep’s back, to legendary figures in history and to the romance of the industry, when drovers, shearers and bullocky teams created our national mystique.

Set in a restored 1872 bluestone wool store, the museum is entertaining, educational and child-friendly with interactive and working displays. The Wool Harvest looks at wool production and sheep farming in Australia from the 1840s to present day, and offers an insight into life on the land. I particularly like the recreated shearer’s quarters and shearing shed that are brought to life by film and song with soundscapes of whirring handpieces, barking kelpies and warbling magpies. From Fleece to Fabric is the Geelong story and centres on manufacture and the textile industry. Various processes involved in transforming fleece to fabric are shown through a display of machinery.

As well as running tours, educational programs and holiday activities, often with shearing demos, the museum hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions, ranging from photographic to textile art. Also on site is a shop, stocking a wide selection of quality Australian wool products.

The post On Jubilee George appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

A Fork in the Road combines my two favourite genres, food and travel writing, and I am eating my way through the book’s 34-courses with gusto, sampling vivid descriptions from the finger lickin’ feast written by award-winning, food-obsessed restaurant critics, writers and chefs. The thrill of a new taste sensation or culture is exhilarating and there is nothing more exciting than being transported to another place, whether in reality or by turning the page.

Edited by James Oseland, the editor-in-chief of Saveur, these stories told through food arouse the appetite and stimulate the mind but also tell of the emotions, pleasure and sensory experiences that come from food. There are moments and meals in all of our lives that alter our view of the world, and each account in the book captures a pivotal food experience.

In the introduction, Oseland describes a personal moment of transformation on his first solo trip abroad. ‘The food was literally life-changing. I felt I suddenly understood this place, and I realized with equal suddenness that I wasn’t necessarily the person I thought I was up until that moment. I’d discovered another part of me.’  He goes on to say that ‘Taste does not lie. It’s pure. The impressions it leaves are sharp, invigorating and emotional.’

Australia’s Neil Perry vividly describes his first, life-changing trip to Paris, when France was the undisputed king of gastronomy; sublime new sensations can take us off-guard and Monique Truong tells how the love of a new destination can feel like a first kiss if we fall hard; Frances Mayes takes us to the hills of Provence for cooking lessons with the legendary Simone Beck. ‘Biting into poulet à l’estragon, I devoured, too, the way of life behind it,’ she writes. There are essays with misadventure and humour, which always make for entertaining reading, such as André Aciman’s calamitous stay in a Tuscan villa and Francine Prose’s hysterical account of a cassoulet lunch. I particularly loved and related to Consider the Twinkle, written by Giles Coren, restaurant critic of The Times in London, who as a young boy in the ’70s yearned for the thrilling foods and unobtainable, exotic delights seen on American TV. Other chronicles are more confronting. 

I tend to remember days and place by what I have eaten. Food is my memory stick. As I bite into a particular day in my mind, the setting, the people, the menu and minute details of time and place appear on the stage set in my head, brought alive by the tastes, aromas, textures and flavours. Dreaming of a picnic will undoubtedly whisk me back to that blissful summer day under a cherry tree on a hill in Provence; a cream-cheese and lox bagel can carry me straight back to 1990s Manhattan, to the morning queue outside the delicious smelling H&H Bagels on the Upper West Side.

One of my most vivid food memories is set in a sun-drenched stone villa in the Tuscan countryside near Colle Val d’Elsa. It was August, 1998 and this Italian holiday was our maiden journey out of a stifling and confining Paris after our first challenging months in the city. We had arranged to meet my brother’s family at the villa and stopped by the supermarket on the way for supplies. I could have stayed all day, awe-struck by the enormous array of sunny Mediterranean food. Needless to say, with the colours and flavours of home before me, I went a little overboard.

An hour later, I found myself lifting down an enormous brightly-painted oval platter from the dining room wall. Soon, it was full of summer delights: smiles of dewy rock-melon wrapped with belts of salty prosciutto, garlicky salami, a bowl of bright-green pesto and fresh, crusty ciabatta bread. I scooped up spoonfuls of glistening olives in a variety of sizes and colours, cut a chunk of hard Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and arranged soft, squishy balls of bocconcini alongside chargrilled vegetables and marinated artichoke hearts. Tall, rustic breadsticks were put into a pot just as my brother’s car pulled up and we ran out out to greet everyone. After our feast, we chatted into the evening over local wine and gorged on sweet, warm figs from the gnarled tree outside as the sun set over the Tuscan hills.

This meal was about far more than the food. It was about spontaneity and freedom after our first highly structured months in Paris. It was about kicking off shoes, relaxing and revelling in the warmth of family, in the colours and flavours and casual lifestyle that reminded us of home.  

The post A Fork in the Road: Tales of Food, Pleasure & Discovery appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

A super little spot to escape to for a day, a weekend or a breezy summer break is Port Elliot, just an hour’s drive from Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula. With an old-world feel this laid-back little village near Horseshoe Bay is, surprisingly, just the place to snatch up some last-minute Christmas gifts or to spoil yourself with a stylish memento from your beach-side holiday.

Here are three favourite boutiques…I’m sure you won’t leave empty handed.

Coast by Design

Image courtesy of Balhannah by Design

A sister store to the gorgeous Balhannah by Design in the Adelaide Hills, this French-inspired homewares emporium has a relaxed style and is filled with delicious things. Mon Bowring, the dynamic owner of both stores, has an eye for beauty and it’s always a joy to discover what treasures she has picked up on her travels and buying trips through Australia and Europe.

As well as trinkets and home accessories, from chic Christmas baubles and wreaths to Côte Noire scented candles and Laguiole cutlery, there are larger items such as European sideboards and French-inspired washed oak cabinets. I love the ceramic platters and bowls in shades of vanilla and duck egg blue, the pressed metal jugs with a floral design and the vintage French seeding pots. 

Image courtesy of Balhannah by Design

Image courtesy of Balhannah by Design

Elliot and Me

Snap up a scarf, a pretty wallet or a strand of bright beads in this welcoming, cheery boutique just off the main street.

The Elk range of original accessories, leather handbags and contemporary women’s fashion stars but it’s difficult not to be wooed by a pair of pearl earrings from gingerlily, a bracelet from Pigeonhole or an artisan ring from Ottoman. Made in Turkey, the metal is hand beaten and rolled in silver.  There’s also Eb & Ive for fun, colourful beads and bangles and affordable clothing and accessories.

All That Jazz

The name may be naff but inside, room after room in this old stone house is filled with style. A couple of doors down from the popular Port Elliot Bakery, the accent is on French-inspired homewares (of both the faux variety and the real thing) along with billowing racks of casual women’s fashion and beautiful jewellery. Parisian café aprons made from raw linen hang from a door; there are whimsical Christmas decorations twirling from trees and crockery for the table.

French glassware from the La Rochère collection, the oldest running glassworks in Europe, sits on silver trays. The super-strong pressed glass is dishwasher and microwave safe. Choose from water, wine or Champagne flutes decorated with motifs of the Eiffel Tower, Fleur de Lys or the iconic bee, an instantly recognisable symbol of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire.

After your gift-buying expedition, slip around to No. 58 Cellar Door & Gallery on Waterport Road for coffee and cake, or sample some small batch wines from Thunderbird and Mt Billy with a regional tasting plate. Here in the rustic gallery you can browse works by local, national and international artists. For a very special gift, consider a light-filled landscape painting by Tom O’Callaghan, a renowned local artist who captures the moods and atmosphere of the Australian coast on canvas. 

Open Friday to Monday, on sunny days you can sit on the deck overlooking the vineyard with Maggie and Mollie, two friendly border collies who welcome you at the door. 

For more information on this coastal region visit the Fleurieu Peninsula website and click on my blog here. 

The post Deck the Halls at Port Elliot appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

Goodness knows how many cakes I cooked during those times! As well as a necessity on the farm, baking was my creative outlet and I spent hours in the kitchen at my mother’s side. Just as one cake was placed in the oven I would slide open the large drawer stuffed full of recipe books, flick through the pages and decide on what to cook next. Thankfully, large bins of flour and sugar were always on hand, and fresh eggs and milk in plentiful supply. One day during shearing time I recall trying to beat my ‘personal best’, baking 22 log cakes for the shearer’s smoko and lining them all up on the bench, proud as punch. Shame we didn’t have instagram back then!

These cookbooks were not glossy affairs with mouthwatering photos but sensible paperbacks with time-honoured recipes by good country cooks. Put together by the Country Women’s Association (CWA), school and church groups or the Red Cross, they were designed to be helpful, not delightful, and were about relaying information, not inspiration. You had to use your own imagination. I recall in my mid-teens receiving my first hardcover recipe book with pictures: the Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook, and I thought it ever so sophisticated. I still use it occasionally but it now looks far from what we would consider glam!

Pulling out these old books today, one thing that strikes me is the level of assumed knowledge in the recipes. Any home cook worth their salt didn’t need the method spelled out in detail! Their pages not only provide a peek into the dishes that graced the tables of the era they were published in, but into the life and times, giving a glimpse of what was expected of women and the patterns and rhythms of everyday life.

I love The Housewives’ Calendar of Puddings published by the South Australian branch of the CWA, complete with an inscription from my grandmother to my mother, dated 1949. In the foreword is written ‘How often do hundreds of housewives say, “Whatever shall we have for a pudding today?” – and wish they could think of something different. The South Australian CWA has endeavoured to help with a solution to this problem by preparing a calendar with a recipe for a sweet every day in the year.’

No pressure! All domestic goddesses should be able to whip up a pud every evening, right, 365 days of the year? It reminds me of a kind of Julie & Julia scenario, where young New Yorker Julie Powell aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Julie Child’s cookbook in the space of a year. Perhaps down the track, if I have the stamina, I will attempt to cook and blog through the Calendar of Puddings! There is also a CWA Calendar of Cakes, Meat and Fish, and a collection of recipes for pickles, sauces, jams and jellies.

I adore the perfect, handwritten cursive in some of the books along with some of the recipe titles, from Feather Tea Cake and Blowaway Sponge to Cream Lillies and Lover’s Knots. Published in times when nothing was wasted – even the dying heat of a wood oven – many recipes have more down-to-earth names. Odds-and-Ends Pudding, for example, made when ingredients were scarce and times were tough, or Drought Plum Pudding and Thrifty Cinnamon Cake. Scrambled Brains, calling for two sets of sheep’s brains, doesn’t exactly evoke delicious thoughts, and when time was limited due to other chores, you could always pop a Washing Day Pudding in the oven.

From the age of seven I baked Simplicity Chocolate Cake from Cooking Country Style, a book of recipes collected by members of the Kybybolite Red Cross Branch, a tiny town near the South Australian-Victorian border that was at the time a prosperous wool growing district.

With seven ingredients and everything lumped in together, it was an easy cake for beginners. Rarely were the cake tins empty and there always seemed to be at least one log of this very basic chocolate cake in the house, topped with chocolate icing and sprinkled with hundred & thousands or coconut. At shearing time it was made en masse. The recipe was passed down to my daughters who changed the title to the much more enticing Secret Seven Chocolate Cake. Nowadays, it’s not just about practicality; we like everything to sound more appealing.

Some things you never forget and I can still recall the seven ingredients by heart in a flash. It may be a simple recipe – quite unlike the dense chocolate mud cakes of today, but it is also a powerful legacy that connects our family though the generations. After a long hiatus, I couldn’t help but make it – and with that first soft bite, memories come flooding back.

The post On Vintage Cookbooks & Chocolate Cake appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

Hynam School Pet Show, circa 1968

Frozen in time, it perfectly captures life in the late 1960s in a small country school in South Australia. What makes it all the more precious is that formal class photos were scarce; in fact I have few shots of the era at all so you can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon a slide of the whole school, grades 1 through to 7.

This photo is of the school Pet Show, an anticipated event that saw this bunch of farm kids bundle up their favourite pets and bring them to school to show and parade, resulting in an intriguing menagerie of dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and lambs…I vaguely even recollect a calf! I can’t help but ponder just how different my early school days were from my daughters’, who, a generation on at the same age, attended school in the centre of Paris.

I’m the scrawny little kid in the front right of the photo holding the lead on one of the numerous pet lambs we bottle-fed during my childhood. My elder brother is in the centre of the photo with his dog Lassie (no comments on the imaginative name please!) who won the Pet Show. A much loved dog, Lassie was the only sandy-coloured border collie I remember on the farm in a long line of black-and-white sheepdogs, and the only photo I have ever seen of her.

Now I just have to try and work out who everyone is!

The post On Country Schools & Pet Shows appeared first on knife & fork in the road.

What I find most intriguing is a European provincial feel about the town and surrounds that can’t be ignored, along with a strong culture of good food and wine. You could almost be in Provence.

Driving towards the town last week to meet friends for lunch, I pass a riot of almond trees dressed in pink and white blossoms, a brief, spectacular show that will soon be blown away on the wind. The town is home to an Almond Blossom Festival and is the start and finish of a leg of the Tour Down Under bike race each summer. On weekends, cyclists in lycra hang out on café terraces sipping lattes, and a cycle path connects Willunga to McLaren Vale. The friendly Willunga Farmers’ Market sets the scene in the heart of town on Saturday mornings, an enticing introduction to the array of local produce grown and prepared by small growers and producers on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

Put all this together and it’s not surprising that the town is home to Fino, voted Best Regional Restaurant in South Australia (Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide 2013).

Sharon Romeo and David Swain
Photo: David Smith

Opened in 2006 by Sharon Romeo and award-winning chef David Swain, Fino’s market-driven menu is earthy and rustic with a focus on freshness and flavour rather than fads and five-star fuss. Where possible, produce is freshly plucked, picked, and delivered from the best of our local farmers. The unassuming restaurant is set in a 1850s cottage, with an outside area in summer. Inside, it’s understated-modern-farmhouse: simply furnished, whitewashed walls, arches and slate floors. It almost feels like a contemporary take on a little resto in a fishing village in the Mediterranean.

Sharon is a delightful maître d’ and sommelier – genuinely warm and obliging and full of knowledge. We chat about the change of season and she tells us that the peas are just coming in, along with fresh chèvre from Woodside and garfish from the Spencer Gulf. As well as the service being exceptional, there is an eclectic wine list with a mix of wines from local and European vineyards, particularly France and Italy. Fino scooped the Winner ‘Hall of Fame’ for Australia’s best small wine list 2011.

All dishes are designed to be shared and we opt for the Daily Shared Menu, a hearty winter carte of five courses for $60 per person, just before the doors are thrown open to spring. By sharing, it becomes more of an experience and a great way to taste a range of produce.

We start with sourdough to dip in Diana ‘Novello’ extra virgin olive oil, and house made salami. ‘It’s my Dad’s recipe,’ says Sharon as she pours glasses of Ashton Hills ‘Piccadilly Valley’ Pinot Noir 2011.

Our first course is salted snapper with Romanesco (Roman cauliflower) and Lyonnaise dressing. The fresh, perfectly cooked produce speaks for itself and the snapper is moist and flavoursome.

Next comes earthy buckwheat, mushrooms and chestnuts in a Spanish cazuela (rustic clay pot) that arrives sizzling hot from the oven. On top is a surprise and splash of colour – vibrant brussel sprouts.

Filleted local garfish are served with heads on, and accompanied by divine fondant potato with spring onions and fin herbs. At this stage in the lunch, and with other restaurants in the town and region to try, I am pleased that David (one of the friends dining with me) has bought land to build on in the hills behind!

Photo: David Smith

Next in the crescendo is Inman Valley free range chicken served on lightly salted celeriac rémoulade; shredded celeriac root with house made caper mayonnaise, finished with a grating of fresh horseradish. Ashley and Christine Boyer sell their Inman Valley Poultry at the farmers’ market.

Photo: David Smith

There should, in fact, be only one more dish but we couldn’t resist the sound of Trott Shiraz Pie and we snuck in an extra…Pourquoi pas? ‘The dish was created using three local ingredients, lamb, Kalamata olives and Shiraz,’ says Sharon as she pours glasses of Cradle of Hills Shiraz Mourvèdre 2010 from McLaren Vale. ‘It’s on the menu every winter. The lamb is from Normanville, the olives from Coriole and the Shiraz from Wirra Wirra.’ The pie is divided into four and one small slice is enough as it is very rich and full of flavour. There is something about it that reminds me of slow cooked lamb roast in a sticky-black-pan-juices kind of way. Lamb roast was a Sunday tradition in my childhood. The roast was put in a very slow oven early morning and cooked for hours until it was falling off the bone; a classic gigot d’agneau de sept heures or seven hour leg of lamb. The pie is held in a sour cream pastry and served with roasted parsnips.

Our last dish is a comforting slow cooked Angus brisket with intense flavour and so tender and soft that you could eat it with a spoon. It is served with bone marrow and baby carrots. When chef David has finished service he tells us that the brisket has been cooked for 14 hours at 110 degrees.

Photo: David Smith

The Brebise d’Argental sheep’s milk from France and the goat’s milk cheese from the Pyrenees are tempting but Crema Catalana boots them down the list with a burnt sugar topping that snaps as the spoon plunges through. ‘It’s been on the menu for seven years,’ says Sharon.

Through September, Fino is offering a Spring Market Lunch on Saturdays (an entrée, main and glass of wine for $40) which, combined with a visit to the farmers’ market, a couple of cellar doors and other good eateries in the area, would make a lovely weekend escape to the country. David, hurry up and get that house built!

The post On a Fine Lunch at Fino appeared first on knife & fork in the road.