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.

Welcome to my new blog, Knife & Fork in the Road! I thought it only fitting that my first post include one of the very first forks I remember, a rather large one used to cook our morning toast. The toasting fork was a common utensil used in daily life on rural properties when I was a small child. Like many farms, we had our own lighting plant and 32 volt power, and on 32 volt you weren’t able to run any heating appliances, and that included a toaster.

There was an art to the toasting fork. The bread had to be thread just right so that it didn’t fall off into the coals, and also be held at just the right distance from the fire so that it didn’t catch alight. Unfortunately, our toasting fork is now long gone but daily rituals and routines carried out as a child have a way of sticking in your mind, whether it be cooking toast over hot coals in rural Australia or running down to the boulangerie for a warm baguette in Paris.

I have always looked at the world through food and many of my earliest memories revolve around the kitchen from my country childhood. With its constant comings and goings, the kitchen was the centre of my mother’s world and the heart of our farm. From daybreak until late into the night, the kitchen was where we gathered, talked, cooked and ate…where there was always a homemade biscuit in the tin, ABC blaring on the radio, and someone popping in for afternoon tea. It was a comfortable, secure cocoon filled with love, food and activity, a high-traffic place that we ran into with fresh mulberries, buckets of mushrooms or a lemon from the tree, and out again with a square of caramel slice or slice of warm chocolate cake.

In winter, there was always something simmering away on the stove top to slurp a spoonful of: pea and ham soup or a lamb stew that filled the house with its sweet, reassuring aroma. The stove was where we warmed our hands after the walk home from the bus stop, and cooked pikelets on the hot plate. From the oven came the smell of cakes baking for the shearer’s smoko or sticky, slow-roasted legs of mutton, while the top racks had myriad functions from rising buns to drying the Adelaide Advertiser before its pages could be read. Thrown daily from the main road dressed in nothing but a flimsy white paper girdle, the paper was often drenched, heavy and forlorn by the time we found it in long grass by the roadside.

The hearth revived sick baby chicks, and now and again, my father, soft at heart, would come through the back door cradling a newborn lamb that had been left for dead in the paddock. We would make a warm bed on the hearth where it slowly recuperated, often with the aid of a pipette or two of brandy.

And then there was the slow bottom oven that always seemed to contain a batch of meringues, a sensible way to use up all those eggs.

These early memories have not only stoked a lifelong passion for fresh seasonal food, but a constant search for addresses with a strong sense of place and authenticity, places that are honest, real and inviting, and passionate about their produce. Although I love the glamour of a gorgeous five-star hotel, and the thrill of dining in a Michelin-starred restaurant, it is the everyday places where the locals go, whether in Paris or Adelaide, that make my heart sing the most, perhaps because in some ephemeral way, they remind me of the warmth of my childhood.

The post On Toasting Forks & Wood Stoves appeared first on knife & fork in the road.