Blog posts have taken a back seat lately as we have been harvesting honey, fruit and vegetables and being part of the baby bubble following the birth of our grandson Lewis.

 Parents Isabelle and Ben are emerging out of the first three months of life with a newborn and it is beautiful to see them nurture their family, get to know Lewis, and learn all the things that come with caring for a baby.

One of the ways we have been able to help from a distance is with food. Arriving with a hamper of Nundle's Crawney's Hills to Grills beef, pasta bake, chicken pie and casserole meal portions for the freezer, a cake, biscuits, favourite muesli, tea, or apples for the fruit bowl just might make life easier at some point of the 24-hour baby clock. 

A new-to-me postpartum snack is the lactation biscuit. I bought a box of lactation biscuits for Isabelle from our local health food store, and after her sister-in-law gave her a homemade batch Isabelle found the recipe online. We started making them during some of my visits, tag teaming between baking and caring for Lewis. Last week I made a batch to take down, and when I arrived Isabelle already had biscuit batter in the stand mixer - such is the popularity of this snack.

What makes a biscuit a lactation biscuit? It's the nutrient dense ingredients that benefit breastfeeding mothers and encourage milk supply, like flaxseed meal, oats, and chia. They are a comforting one-handed snack for when a constantly hungry nursing mother sits and feeds their new baby and needs to replenish their energy between meals. Isabelle and I are big fans of adding a dollop of Nutella. "They're really just a vessel for the Nutella," Isabelle laughs. We've found the recipe to be forgiving when substituting ingredients on hand like almond meal, or leaving out the vanilla paste if there's none in the pantry. 

Don't think the lactation biscuits are quarantined for the nursing mother. Many non-lactating members of the family reach for the lactation biscuits! Credit the Nutella and the chia crunch.

Other handy links

The Complete Guide to Postpartum, Sophie Walker and Jodi Wilson

Mediterranean Savoury Muffins

Freezer Breakfast Burritos with Sweet Potato and Black Beans

Lactation biscuits. Recipe from Roisin @geebungalow

What you need: 165g butter (softened), 3/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract, 2 eggs, 1 cup flaxseed meal (we substitute almond meal with success), 1 cup oats, 1 cup plain flour, 1/4 cup chia seeds, 1 tsp baking powder. Optional: Your choice of jam, nut butter or chocolate spread topping.

What you do: Preheat your oven to 180 C. Use an electric stand mixer to cream together softened butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. On a low setting add the flaxseed meal, oats, flour, chia seeds and baking powder. (At this point we roll balls of biscuit portions, make an indentation with the end of a wooden spoon, or similar, before placing on a lined baking tray, adding topping and refrigerating for 30 minutes). Bake until coloured to your liking (usually 20 minutes), and if using two trays swap position of trays in the oven at 10 minutes.

Isabelle, Ben and Lewis by Solis Stories Photography.

The Christmas baking urge kicked in on the 30th of November. Maybe it was the prospect of an afternoon out with girlfriends, the calendar flipping over to December, or the feeling of the year's responsibilities soon coming to a temporary close. There's nothing like the feeling of literally closing doors and switching off digitally for days, or maybe weeks! So I embarked on early morning baking with enthusiasm, trying a new-to-me recipe for Danish Honey Cakes.

The recipe comes from Country Style magazine's Heirloom Recipe collection. You might have the cookbook. I have many of the recipes torn from magazines and stored in a folder. Why is this a Christmas recipe? It's all about the traditional Christmas spices, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, combined with honey, brown sugar, flour and eggs. The scent begins to waft in the kitchen as you mix the spices with the melted butter and honey, but really intensifies as the biscuits (or cakes) cook in the oven. I used our own honey and eggs, which is always satisfying.

The process of mixing, rolling and baking Christmas biscuits is a ritual. Even though I am making them alone, I am not alone. Baking with me are my grandmother, mother, and children. Using the traditional drum whisk and stoneware mixing bowl I am back standing on a kitchen chair cooking with my mum. Blending the dough I remember a time when I would see her masterfully whisking the contents of a bowl, and wonder, 'How does she do that?' Now that coordination and speed comes with ease. I shape the biscuits on the marble table that we used as a kitchen table for decades, and it evokes memories of cooking, sharing meals and stories with our small people.

So while it is a busy time of year and I don't really need to bake, it connects me to past Christmases and family members who cooked Christmas recipes across the generations. It's a simple, but thoughtful gesture to take home baked biscuits to a gathering, or package them in a cardboard sampler box, tin or glass jar for friends and family. When our 16-year-old emerges for a late Sunday breakfast, I tell him, 'I am cooking Christmas biscuits.' He asks, 'Which ones?' It is not a recipe we've made before, but I hope the flavours bring back, if not a distinct memory, just the feeling of family love and nurturing.

Here are some links to past blog posts featuring biscuits that work well for summer gatherings and gifts:

Parmesan Cheese Biscuits

Sweet Spice Biscuits

Pfeffernusse

Honey Jumbles

Gingerbread

Ginger, Cardamom and Dark Chocolate Biscuits

Danish Honey Cakes, from Country Syle magazine's Heirloom Recipes

What you need: 3/4 cup honey, 1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar, 3 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground fennel, 2 eggs, lightly beaten. Icing: 3 cups icing sugar mixture, sifted, 2 teaspoons softened butter, 3 tablespoons boiling water.

What you do: Preheat the oven to 200C. Line two large baking trays with baking paper. Place honey and brown sugar in a saucepan, and stir over a medium-low heat until smooth and the sugar granules have dissolved. Cool for 10 minutes. 

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and fennel into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture, and pour in the combined honey, sugar and beaten egg. Mix with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk until a soft dough forms.

Knead until smooth, either in the bowl or on a lightly floured surface. Using lightly floured hands, roll the dough into walnut sized balls. I use a tablespoon measure to scoop roughly consistently sized dough balls. Place on prepared trays, allowing room for spreading during cooking. Bake for 12 minutes, swapping the tray shelf positions at 6 minutes, for even golden colouring. Cool on trays.

To make icing, mix icing sugar, butter and water in a bowl until smooth. Top each honey cake with a teaspoon full of icing. Set aside for 30 minutes to set. 

Our September gathering with author, podcaster and regenerative farmer Jade Miles, of Black Barn Farm, was four years in gestation. Jade and I started talking by direct message in 2021 on the back of the launch of Jade's first book Futuresteading. It was a definite yes when Jade approached us to be part of her 2025 lower Hunter and north west NSW tour, taking in Nundle, Somerton, Dungog and Singleton, to promote her second book Huddle. Jade had toured the book in Victoria, WA and the UK since its launch in May.

Our shop verandah has hosted three author events, but this was the first post pandemic lockdown. Our last author event was with Fat Pig Farm's Matthew Evans on Sunday 15 March 2020. It felt significant to welcome our shop community to settle in on our verandah again, engaged in Jade's compelling storytelling.

In preparing for the event I revisited Jade's books and planned a tasting from the recipes featured in their pages. Where possible I used produce from our small farm; preserved plums, apples and passata, eggs, honey, lamb, silverbeet, kale, mustard greens, parsley, thyme and rosemary. We did alright for hosting an event during the 'spring hunger gap' that Jade describes in Huddle as a time when there are slim pickings in the garden and new seedlings yet to emerge. It was excellent motivation to spring clean our shop kitchen and warehouse. I laugh at myself looking at my handwritten lists of what we needed for the event - plates, cups, cutlery, napery, tables, chairs, flowers - and where they would come from (house or shop).

Duncan was a great help of course, transporting furniture from home and even dashing home to cook lamb sausage rolls in our oven. Thankfully Mum and Dad were visiting from the coast and Mum came along to the event to listen and help. Good friend, and fellow Nundle business owner, herbalist Rachel Webster (Oakenville Farm), was another pair of helping hands.

When Jade arrived, for me it was like we'd already met and I was welcoming a friend. I'd listened to Jade's podcast Futuresteading while we were painting our house and I was familiar with much of her backstory and values. It was affirming to see the delight in our guests' faces as they met Jade and talked while they chose a book (or two) for signing. Guests travelled from Tamworth, Liverpool Plains, Wollombi, Maitland, and Lake Macquarie after reading about the event on our socials, journal, and Galah magazine newsletter.

After a welcome drink of plum shrub and nourishing C-soup (carrot, cashew, cumin, coconut and coriander) we gathered in a rough circle to hear Jade. Both Futuresteading and Huddle had emerged out of crises. Jade's reaction to the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, during which husband Charlie Showers was among a crew that survived a burn-over, was to write about how individuals' everyday decisions as consumers could reduce their ecological impact on climate change. The impetus for Huddle was chain of events that left Jade vulnerable, isolated and broken as she commuted from WA to home near Beechworth in north east Victoria without her ID or bank keycards, and a dead phone. Huddle honours the importance of our support networks and looking for commonality at a time when the world is polarising.

Being familiar with Jade's books I had a pre-conceived idea that the afternoon would focus on self-sufficiency, growing and preserving food, and sharing food to create opportunities to explore commonality. However, it was much, much more. I had prepared questions for Jade, but after asking just one question Jade was off. She shared stories of her free range childhood and early exposure to permaculture via her parents' friendship with Bill Mollison. Jade generously told us about her experience of feeling that her roles as farmer, podcaster, writer and Sustainable Table chief executive officer were not enough, and how she embarked on a vision quest to find her ecological purpose. Jade cautioned that a vision quest is not for everyone - four days and nights alone in the bush in a small space three-by-three metres square, without food or entertainment, allowing you to reconnect with your intuition and sense of purpose. 

As we listened intently, a voice in the back of my head kept telling me to feed our guests. There were lamb sausage rolls, greens and ricotta tarts, chocolate slice and apple cake to serve. Duncan and Mum helped me bring out the food, but the conversation was too rich to interrupt. This afternoon was not about food at all. Jade delved into our deep need for connection with ancestral knowledge, embedding rituals in our lives, and creating rites of passage marking transformation between different life stages. Jade's experiences connected emotionally with our guests. There were tears among our circle. Jade's supported vision quest had challenged her physically, mentally and emotionally, and revealed her ecological purpose to host rites of passage camps on Black Barn Farm. "The key takeaway from it for me was the importance of working with women to be witnessed and reconnect with themselves and the landscape," Jade says.

As our afternoon came to an end, our guests hugged Jade goodbye, full of appreciation for her warmth, and generosity with her time and insight. A message from Dr Trini Dickson after the event summed up the shared experience; 'Absolutely loved our afternoon of "huddling" and the encouragement to speak the long lost words of connection that many of us are yearning for.'

Gluten-free lemon and berry tart (serves 10), from Huddle

This is a dish that I didn't have time to make for our Nundle Huddle, but I made it the following week. Jade serves it for every workshop, school group or bus tour at Black Barn Farm.

What you need: BASE 200 g (7 oz/2 cups) ground almonds, 65 g (2 1/4 oz/1/2 cup) buckwheat flour, 175 g (6 oz/1 cup) brown rice flour, 80 g (2 3/4 oz/1/2 cup) chia seeds, grated zest and juice of two lemons, 110 g (4 oz/1/2 cup) solid coconut oil, 95 g (3 1/4 oz/1/2 cup) soft brown sugar.

FILLING 12 egg yolks (freeze egg whites for use in omelettes or meringues), 1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract, 4 tablespoons natural rapadura sugar (or soft brown sugar), grated zest and juice of 3 lemons, 250 ml (8 1/2 fl oz/1 cup) coconut cream, 75 g (2 3/4 oz/1/2 cup) fresh or frozen mixed berries, plus 150 g (5 1/2 oz/1 cup) extra, double cream or plain yoghurt, to serve.

What you do: Preheat the oven to 180C. To make the base, blitz all the base ingredients in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine crumbs (or combine in a large bowl and rub oil into the mixture with your fingertips.)

Transfer to a 20 cm (8 in) tart tin, pressing into the base and up the side, making sure to cover evenly and fill in any gaps or cracks. Bake for five minutes, then set aside to cool a little.

Meanwhile, blend all the filling ingredients, except the berries and cream or yoghurt, in a blender until just combined.

Pour the filling over the pastry case. Sprinkle the berries evenly over the top. Bake for 50 minutes until the top is set and golden.

Serve with the extra berries and cream or yoghurt.

Lamb Tagine with Prunes and Fresh Turmeric has been added to our regular recipe cycle this winter. The recipe, by Cornersmith, calls for diced lamb shoulder, but we use whatever diced homegrown, home butchered lamb is bagged and wrapped in butchers paper in the freezer. I enjoy the process of pounding and grinding the spice mix in a mortar and pestle, knowing that the mixture will make for a delicious meal. It's the kind of dish that cooks low and slow, and by the time it is on the plate the lamb is incredibly tender and flavoursome. It's also a recipe that makes use of many of our homegrown ingredients: honey, bay, parsley, and bottled tomatoes.

Occasionally, we have meat marked 'Hogget' in the freezer. Not everyone knows what hogget is because it is not something advertised in supermarkets or retail butchers. You might remember the characters Esme and Arthur Hogget, the owners of Babe the pig. Hogget is the meat of a young sheep or maiden ewe with no more than two permanent incisors, hence the interchangeable term 'two-tooth.' Many lamb producers and foodies believe that hogget is more flavoursome than lamb, a sheep under 12 months old. So when I see a package marked Hogget, instead of Lamb, in our freezer I know it will make Lamb Tagine taste even better than usual.

Lamb Tagine with Prunes and Fresh Turmeric, from 'Cornersmith' by Alex Elliott-Howery and James Grant

What you need: 2 star anise, 4 cloves, 1 teaspoon coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, 2 teaspoons smoked paprika, 900 g lamb shoulder, cut into 5 cm cubes, 12-16 prunes, stones removed, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 large brown onion, thinly sliced, 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced, 1 teaspoon grated ginger, 1 teaspoon grated turmeric, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 small carrots, thickly sliced, 1 tablespoon honey, 700 g bottled tomatoes or good quality tinned tomatoes, 3 stips orange zest, 1 bay leaf, 600-700 ml chicken or beef stock, or water, 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon chopped toasted almonds, 1 tablespoon finely chopped preserved lemon rind, couscous to serve.  

What you do: Use a spice grinder or mortar and pestle to ground the star anise, cloves, and coriander and caraway seeds into a fine powder, then stir in the smoked paprika. Place half of the spice mix in a large bowl, add the lamb and mix well, then set aside to marinate for at least two hours, but preferably overnight. In another bowl, soak the prunes for the same amount of time.

Just before cooking, season the marinated lamb with salt and drain the prunes, reserving the soaking liquid. Choose a flameproof casserole or heavy based pan large enough to hold the meat in a single layer. Place over medium-high heat, add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and sear the lamb, turning it to brown evenly on all sides. Remove the meat and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the remaining tablespoon of oil, along with the onion. Season with salt and pepper and saute for two minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon, together with the rest of the spice mix, and keep cooking, stirring constantly so the spices don't burn, for about five minutes or until the garlic, ginger and turmeric have softened and the spices are fragrant.

Return the seared meat to the pan, then add the carrots, honey and reserved prune -soaking liquid, stirring the base of the pan to deglaze. Pour  in the tomatoes and bring to the boil, then add the orange zest, prunes and bay leaf and simmer for five minutes. Add enough stock or water to cover, bring back to the boil, then reduce to a very low simmer (use a simmer mat if you have one). Cover with a circle of paper, pressing it directly onto the surface of the tagine, then cover with a lid and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until the meat is very tender, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking or burning.

Scatter the parsley, almonds, and preserved lemon over the tagine and serve with couscous. 

‘Why didn’t you just bulldoze it?’ is a question we’ve been asked more than once about the renovation of our 70-year-old timber house at Nundle, in the Upper Peel Valley of north west NSW.

We did ask both our draftsman and builder, ‘Should we knock it down?’ Their advice was that the frame of the house was solid and we could work with what we had, rather than build new.

Making use of existing available materials, and hopefully saving money made sense as well. It also appealed to history. Our family has memories in these walls where we’ve raised children, had family celebrations and nurtured daily routines. Retaining parts of the old house honoured those stories.

It took time - well, years - to plan and approve a more logical redesign, small extension and much anticipated verandah, and then wait our turn for an in demand builder. We’d worked with designer Grant Bedford and builder Peter Downie before, replacing our timber and iron shop verandah. We liked the quality of their work and trusted that they had our best interests at heart.

Renovating a house is very different to replacing a verandah. Peter reminded us of an early conversation in our old kitchen when he asked, ‘You do realise you are rebuilding your house?’

We were extremely excited to start the project in September 2022, beginning with deconstruction of the old painted cement floor bathroom. Fortunately, we had a second bathroom, and a kitchen sink in one of our sheds, and were able to live in the house during the 18-month build. Eventually the house was emptied of all but essential possessions and we slept on mattresses on the floor and moved them from room to room as needed.

Neither of us were ready for the sheer number of decisions to be made. We were ready for big decisions on paint colour, tiles, and light fittings. It was the minuscule details like grout colour, outdoor lighting placement, and window frame profiles that surprised us.

What helped was understanding what materials suited the kind of house we wanted to live in. For us, this was informed by our rural surroundings and food production on our small farm. We leaned toward galvanised external light fittings, galvanised mini orb verandah lining, cedar windows and concertina doors, and batten and board cladding. 

Whenever I found myself lost looking at hard copy or online catalogues of building materials I repeated the words, ‘Earthy, mountain, farmhouse’ to guide our selection. More than a year after they were laid I still enjoy seeing the morning and afternoon winter sun warm the terracotta kitchen tiles and timber floorboards, and connection to nature and the surrounding landscape from every window and door.

We recycled building materials when possible, reusing removed floorboards, running old weatherboards through a thicknesser to lay as floorboards in new sections of the house, using old shop verandah timbers to make a kitchen benchtop, and stripping our old backdoor to use as a linen cupboard door.

We moved a claw foot bath previously used at the shop, and were delighted to find decorative cast iron eagles claw ‘feet’ when we removed the fibre cement surround from the old bathroom.

We had salvaged internal bedroom doors from Duncan’s brother’s Sydney renovation of a Californian bungalow at Marrickville in the 1990s, and reused preloved metal light fittings bought at clearing sales in the original part of the house.

We also wanted to honour the modest roots and age of the house that had been an early kit home, fabricated off site in Dubbo, and erected in Nundle in the 1950’s. It was built for Ivan Inman (and family) who worked as a gardener on the large Nundle grazing property “Wombramurra.” Getting to know Ivan, uncovering a stone path he’d made, and reviving some of his plantings has been a source of great joy. 

We bought a second hand timber and patterned glass back door from Nundle antiques dealer Kevin Blackwell. Kev was just as thrilled as we were when he found three antique milk glass Chinaman’s hat light fittings knowing they would be perfect for pendant lights above the kitchen bench.

Our shop neighbour Jenkins Street Antiques and Fine China owner Mark Delahunt sold us Art Deco light fittings out of the old Nundle Bank of New South Wales bank manager’s residence for bedrooms.

Peter raided his stash of salvaged materials, contributing a toilet door to match the linen cupboard door directly opposite, and a 12-pane Kosciusko glass door for the bathroom. 

While the building team left in April 2024, in time for us to host 40 guests for our daughter Isabelle and son-in-law Ben's post wedding breakfast, Duncan and I kept painting, sanding floorboards, and oiling cedar door and window frames for the next 12 months.

Early on Peter asked us what we wanted to achieve from the rebuild. Among our goals was a much improved, locally adapted house. Well sealed, better insulation, maximised rainwater capture and storage, passive solar heating in winter, and better airflow for cooling in summer.

What does this look like day to day? In summer we enjoy opening up the windows and doors of the house to capture the extraordinary cooling easterly breeze off the Great Dividing Range, and having a wine or beer at the end of the day on our verandah, shaded by crabapple, plum, pear, and apple trees planted 13 years ago. 

From November to May homegrown fruit, vegetables, honey, eggs and lamb are brought from the paddocks and garden into the kitchen for preserving, butchering, and cooking.

Before renovating we had discussed what gives you comfort in a home and Duncan had said, ‘Returning home, coming down the driveway and seeing smoke rising from the chimney.’ 

After living for a time during the build with nothing more than a tarpaulin between us and sub zero overnight temperatures the greatest joy has been Duncan’s reinstallation of our Morso cast iron fireplace in the lounge room.

The house is still bare as we continue to unpack boxes, position furniture, and hang art. We need to reinstall our wood stove in the kitchen and plumb it in for hot water, and we’re contemplating window coverings despite the nearest neighbours being nearly a kilometre away.

When we return home and pull into the drive, most days there is smoke rising from the chimney, and when we open the door, the house is at a delightful temperature and as you step over the threshold you can see welcoming warming red coals and flames flickering in the fireplace.

Gryff and friend Sam picking broad beans with the higgledy-piggledy 70-year-old weatherboard house in the background (around 2013)

There is no shortage of pumpkins in our life. Pumpkin vines have been happily reaching their tendrils across our vegetable garden over the summer and autumn. Duncan consulted a 1989 edition of Peter Cundall's Seasonal Tasks for the Practical Australian Gardener for the best time to cut the pumpkins off the vine, covering the fruit with heavy hessian sacks until the frost started to blacken the leaves. Thanks to the obscuring grass and shading leaves, when Duncan cut the pumpkins and stacked them on our verandah this month, even he was surprised by the bounty. He attributes this to experimenting with pulse watering espoused by Emma Horswill from Earthenry Farm on Jennie Love's The No-Till Flowers Podcast.

Queensland Blue and Ironbark pumpkins are now in full view of the kitchen, which is a convenient reminder to use them in cooking whenever possible. Friends have called into the shop looking for pumpkins to make pumpkin soup for family gatherings, and a bread making workshop. Visiting family left with armfuls of pumpkins. I laughed to myself as I typed an SMS to our neighbours, 'I left a pumpkin in your letterbox.'

The ample pumpkin supply has fortunately coincided with a cold snap. Winter has been slow arriving, but in the past fortnight consecutive heavy frosts have shed the final autumn colour from the pear, medlar and quince trees. There was even snow on the range. 

I revisited Jill Dupleix's Roast pumpkin, red onion and sausage tray bake with tomato salsa for a midweek dinner using our local Crawney's Hills to Grills beef sausages. Jane and Jeremy Strode's Pumpkin curry is a favourite recipe to make this week.

When I found myself at home for the day, I scoured our collection of recipes for pumpkin soup and settle on pumpkin soup with a twist, Belinda Jeffrey's Smoky pumpkin, kidney bean and kale soup. Every Sunday I look forward to seeing Belinda's post on Instagram documenting her travels, farmers' market finds, and seasonal cooking. It's a pleasure to be cooking one of Belinda's recipes, having some insight into her love of homegrown and local produce.

If you don't have pumpkins lined up to be cooked at your kitchen door, look out for roadside stalls. The going farm gate rate is about $5 for a whole pumpkin, which is incredible value, and you cut out all those food miles and plastic packaging. Wins all round. 

Belinda Jeffrey's Smoky pumpkin, kidney bean and kale soup

What you need: 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 large onion, peeled, coarsely chopped, 2 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped, 1 small red chilli, finely chopped, 400g bacon bones or 1 ham hock, 1.4kg butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded, cut into small chunks, 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes, 150g kale (or substitute greens), washed, stalks removed, roughly chopped, 1 x 400g can red kidney beans (I used dried black beans, boiled in water for 50 minutes until soft), drained, rinsed.

What you do: Warm oil in a large saucepan over low heat. Add onion, garlic and chilli (I used 1/4 teaspoon dried chilli flakes), and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until onion is translucent. Add bacon bones or ham hocks (I used two rashers of bacon cut into batons), pumpkin and bay leaf, then cover with 5 cups of cool water. Add sea salt, cover with a lid and  and bring to boil over a medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, with lid slightly ajar, for 1 hour. Remove from heat. Remove and discard bacon bones and bay leaf (I removed and set aside bacon batons). Cool slightly.

Use a stick blender to puree soup until smooth in pan. Place pan over a low heat until soup is just bubbling. At this point I returned the bacon batons to the soup. Stir in kale and cook, partly covered, for 20 minutes (if using less course greens, cook for less time, until greens are wilted). Add most of the kidney beans (or black beans if using) after 10 minutes. Garnish with remaining beans and freshly ground black pepper.

Taste soup and season with salt if needed. Ladle into warm bowls and garnish with remaining beans and ground pepper.

For more pumpkin inspiration, explore some of our past blog posts including:

Pumpkin fruitcake

Pumpkin soup for one 

One of our tomato beds looking lush earlier in the season, February 2025.

We watch the Bureau of Meteorology app for warnings of frost and when the forecast is for minimum temperatures below 5 C that's close enough to strip the tomato vines of remaining red and green tomatoes. It's a repetitive task that I strangely enjoy, hunting for viable firm tomatoes that don't have insect or weather damage. If they are damaged they are tossed aside to be cleaned up by the chooks.

Looking at the crop from a distance you wouldn't think there were many tomatoes left, but as we lift withering vines and leaves, bundles of perfect tomatoes appear. We methodically pick, row by row, and the tubs of green and red tomatoes begin to fill. On the eve of the first expected frost we have picked about 60 kg of tomatoes. It's a satisfying feeling knowing that we have saved them from turning to mush. The next morning we are almost disappointed that the frost didn't arrive as predicted. Well, at least the job is done.

What do you do with so many tomatoes? We already have about a year's supply of passata, so these tomatoes will be shared with neighbours, added daily to Greek salads, ragu or pasta sauce, and made into red and green tomato relish or chutney. After searching through our cook books I settle on making a Sally Wise recipe for green tomato chutney because it uses 3 kg of tomatoes (and makes 14 jars of chutney). 

For the first time I'm trying Green Tomatoes in Olive Oil from Milkwood. I like Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar's encouragement, 'We use it on sandwiches, with eggs... with everything!'

Green Tomatoes in Olive Oil from Milkwood

What you need: Green tomatoes, salt, apple cider vinegar, sliced fresh chilli, sliced garlic, dried oregano, olive oil.

What you do: Thinly slice tomatoes and make 5 cm layers in a clean bowl or bucket, sprinkling salt over each layer. Place a plate on top of the tomatoes and add a heavy weight on top. Leave the tomatoes to sweat for 24 hours.

The next day, transfer the tomatoes to a clean bowl or bucket, draining them to remove moisture, but reserving the brine to use in soups and stews.

Pour equal parts of apple cider vinegar and water over the tomatoes to just cover them. Again cover them with a plate and add a heavy weight. Leave the tomatoes for another 24 hours.

The next day, drain the tomatoes again. Mix through some sliced chilli, garlic and dried oregano, to taste. Loosely pack the tomato mixture into sterilised jars, leaving 5 cm free at the top of the jars.

Pour olive oil over the tomatoes in each jar, filling the jars to the top. Tightly screw on the lids and store in a cool place for two weeks before using. They will keep for up to six months.

Sterilise jars by first washing the jars and lids, then draining well. Put the jars in a 150 C oven for 30 minutes. Carefully remove the hot jars from the oven and use them while hot if possible. 

Nundle Book Group's monthly gathering is motivation to make Sophie Hansen’s Parmesan cheese biscuits from Local is Lovely. With the sharpness of the parmesan and kick of cayenne pepper they are the perfect snack to have with drinks, add to a chatter platter, or package as a gift. Our book group enjoyed them eaten on their own, but you could experiment topping with more cheese or tapenade. Please give them a try and even follow Sophie's advice and make the dough well in advance so you just have to slice and cook when you need the biscuits. How appropriate that Sophie is an avid reader, co-hosting the podcast @somethingtoeat_somethingtoread with Germaine Leece.

Our book group members made up a significant part of the audience for the Sydney Writers' Festival Live and Local program live streamed free at Nundle Library and dozens more across Australia. This was the first time Nundle Library used its new 190cm wide screen and I really felt like I was in the audience listening to Helen Garner (The Season), Nadine Ingram (Flour and Stone), Natalie Paull (Beatrix Bakes), Kate Reid (Lune Croissanterie), and Asako Yazuki (Butter). Using technology like this to overcome distance is a wonderful way to link rural readers and writers with their favourite, or previously unknown, authors.

Parmesan cheese biscuits from Local is Lovely by Sophie Hansen

Serves 10. Prep: 15 minutes. Cooking time: 15 minutes. Resting time: Until cool.

What you need: 1 1/2 cups plain flour (I used a stoneground, unbleached flour), 150 g unsalted butter, cubed, 1 1/2 cups finely grated parmesan, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp milk.

What you do: Combine the flour and butter in a large bowl, using your fingertips to blend the butter and flour together to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add parmesan, cayenne pepper, egg yolks, and milk, and mix until combined. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently knead and shape into a ball. Use your hand to form the dough into a log of about 4 cm diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Slice the dough into 4 mm rounds and place on prepared baking tray/s. Bake for 15 minutes until golden and crisp. Cool completely on wire racks then store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

We are coming to the end of our summer fruit and vegetable harvest and the garden is moving into its autumn and winter rest mode with plenty of golden colour in the acers outside our kitchen window.

We have celebrated three family birthdays in the last six weeks. As a result I've been getting back into cake making and enjoying exploring a Nadine Ingram rabbit hole. We gave Isabelle the Flour and Stone baker Nadine's book 'Love Crumbs' for her birthday and each recipe is a beautifully written story about the ingredients, flavours, textures, and processes. It is a next level recipe book that you can enjoy for the writing, photography and of course baking. I had the pleasure of meeting Nadine at Barbara Sweeney's Food and Words Writers' Festival in Sydney years ago.

Exploring Nadine's recipes online I have made Flour and Stone's chocolate, raspberry and buttermilk cake three times, once with baked quince (pictured above) instead of raspberries. Ingram calls it the 'fudgiest of all the chocolate cakes' she knows. Every time it has delivered on dense chocolate fudge indulgence contrasting with the sweetness of the fruit. Our eldest son could only just wait for me to take a photograph before tasting the cake. I'm looking forward to baking more of Nadine's recipes and savouring her beautiful creativity.

Chocolate, raspberry and buttermilk cake

What you need: 220g quality dark chocolate (minimum 60% cocoa solids), roughly chopped, 110g unsalted butter, cut into large cubes, 4 eggs, 90g light brown sugar, 60g almond meal, 60ml buttermilk (I have used natural yoghurt with success), 180g frozen raspberries.

What you do: Preheat the oven to 140C. Line a 22cm springform cake tin with baking paper and dust with flour. 

Place the chocolate and butter in a double boiler saucepan, or heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of barely simmering water to melt. Ensure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl and that it's a gentle heat to avoid burning. Stir occasionally with a spatula until combined.

Place eggs and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on high speed for five minutes until it's a thick and fluffy sabayon.

Once the chocolate is melted, turn the mixer off and pour the chocolate into the bowl with the eggs, then add the almond meal and buttermilk.

Use the lowest speed to gently mix the ingredients together, as if folding by hand. The mixture will be streaky as the sabayon melds with the chocolate. Stop the whisk after a couple of turns around the bowl, just before the last streak disappears, to ensure a light batter that is not overworked.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a spatula to scrape to the base of the bowl and combine any remaining chocolate.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until the top of the cake forms a crust. Remove from the oven and cover with raspberries (or baked quince), pressing them gently into the surface of the cake. Return the cake to the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the centre is springy to touch. Cool the cake in the tin for at least two hours before removing it. Heat the blade of a knife with hot water and wipe dry before slicing to achieve a clean cut. Serve with a big dollop of double cream.  

It's always a pleasure to feature the leather work of local Thabo Alberts in our store. For decades Thabo Alberts has been crafting leather. "I've always been mucking around with leatherwork, I've been doing it for about twenty years," Thabo says.

Thabo cuts all the leather using a 28-year-old pocket knife and stitches it by hand in his workshop on the grazing property near Nundle where he lives with wife Tamika and children Willow, 4, and Franco, 2. He retreats to the quiet of his workshop after the children are in bed. It is a space he enjoys. "When it's hot there is a breeze, and when it's cold there is a pot belly stove."

Some of the leather that Thabo uses is from recycled polo saddle flaps and has the worn patina and softness that only use and care can achieve.  When recycled polo saddle flaps are not suitable or available, Thabo selects new leather.

Thabo made pocket knife pouches specifically to suit the Opinel and Buck knives that we sell in the shop. We also love the spice pouch for campfire cooking, leather sleeves for skillet handles, and belt pouches in several designs for hands free carrying.

It feels good to be writing '1/25' with a permanent marker on the jars of the first batch of preserved apricots for the New Year. While not a great yield thanks to fruit fly, 10 bottles, it's still 'three weeks of breakfast fruit, only 49 to go' as Duncan sees it. We usually work our way through bottled apricots, plums, apple, and pear throughout the year and it greatly reduces the amount of fruit that we buy. 

Every summer before bottling our first fruit I re-read some of our go-to references, including hand me downs from mum and dad, 1980s articles saved from The Land and Hobbyfarmer magazine. A game changer was a gift of the 1953 nineteenth revised edition of 'Fowler's method of bottling fruits and vegetables' by Joseph Fowler when managing director of Fowlers Vacola Manufacturing Co Ltd.

This small book recommends the best sized bottles for different fruit and describes how to pack fruit and vegetables to achieve a 'pleasing result' when seeing bottled fruit through the glass. When I started following Fowler's instructions Duncan described my bottled fruit as 'CWA-worthy,' the highest compliment you can pay a preserver.

Following Fowler's instructions I cut our apricots in halves, removed the stones and packed them cut side down, overlapping in layers, into a little water, topping up to leave a 3 mm gap from the rim of the #31 bottle. 

Fowlers Vacola's more recent publication 'Secrets of successful preserving, an Australian Guide' is also helpful for reminders on bottling and processing. It's a long time between summer harvests. Some of the helpful hints include:

1. Pack into a little water to reduce air pockets;

2. Use a pitting spoon to remove stones and discoloured flesh (when preserving large volumes this can save RSI on your fingertips and fingernails);

3. Use a packing stick to help position fruit;

4. Leave packed fruit for a few minutes to release air bubbles before attaching rings, lids and clips;

5. Use a skewer to release visible air bubbles;

6. Soak rings in hot water for a few minutes before stretching around bottle rims;

7. Use bottle tongs to safely remove hot jars from the preserving unit (or pot) and avoid scalding your skin.

We're having a lot of conversations with customers in the shop and over the phone about what they are harvesting, weather challenges, and pest control. Our daughter and son-in-law are growing fruit and vegetables in their urban backyard at Newcastle and posting photos of their harvests on socials. It feels like we're all in this together and it's fun to share experiences and recipes. I'll park our 2022 blog post How do I get into preserving? here in case it is useful.

We're now keeping an eye on our cultivated plum trees. It's only a matter of weeks before we'll be halving, pitting, bottling and adding them to the pantry marking the jars with '1/25'.

Our spring garden/summer harvest is taking shape with Duncan's structures of shade tunnels, stakes, trellises and netting evolving almost daily. Fruit is forming on the trees and we will be eating and preserving plums in no time. Concealed underneath apple trees at the northern end of the vegetable garden closest to our house is a planting of rhubarb, a gift from dad years ago. Spotting the crimson rhubarb stalks underneath the apple foliage was the motivation to make Rhubarb and Citrus Frangipane Tart. Frangipane Tart, made with a French almond filling, is such a standby for using fresh or preserved fruit. Tarts are lovely to make and share when you'd like to take something to a gathering because they have a sense of occasion and can be sliced to go a long way. I've made Frangipane Tarts in large round and rectangular pans, as well as small individual round pie dishes, depending on the shape of the fruit you're using and the number of servings needed. You can substitute pear, apple, stonefruit or berries. Enjoy making Rhubarb and Citrus Frangipane Tart and sharing it with friends and family.

Rhubarb and Citrus Frangipane Tart

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

You can use frozen Sweet Shortcrust Pastry and trim the sheets to fit your greased pan, or you can make your own. This recipe makes about 650 g.

What you need - 160 g butter, softened slightly, 120 g icing (confectioners') sugar, sifted, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 250 g plain flour, sifted, 2 egg yolks.

What you do - Add butter, sugar and vanilla to a food processor and blend until combined. Pulse in the flour until the mixture is crumbly, then pulse in the egg yolks. Empty the mixture onto a bench and knead briefly until it forms a dough ball. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Grease your tart pan and press the dough into the base of the pan. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes to harden.

Frangipane Tart Filling

What you need - 200 g butter, softened slightly, 250 g caster sugar, 4 eggs, beaten, 3 tablespoons flour, 300 g almond meal or 300 g blanched almonds ground finely in a food processor, zest of 1 orange, 200 g rhubarb stalks (600 g if making Roasted rhubarb with ginger below).

What you do - Preheat oven to 150 C (fan forced). While the pastry is resting and hardening in the fridge, beat the butter and sugar until combined. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the flour, almond meal and zest and combine. Remove the hardened tart case from the fridge. Pour the almond mixture into the tart case and smooth the top. Remove any rhubarb leaves completely and discard (they are poisonous). Wash hands. Slice the rhubarb stalks into desired lengths. I cut stalks to fit two rows of rhubarb in a rectangular pan for ease of slicing. Press the stalks into the almond filling. Place in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, checking that your tart is firm in the middle. It will brown and rise slightly.

Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Dust with icing sugar. Serve in wedges with cream or ice cream. I had rhubarb stalks left over and made Roasted Rhubarb with Ginger.

Roasted Rhubarb with Ginger

What you need - 2 small bunches of rhubarb, or 400 g, 5 cm piece of ginger, juice of 1 orange, 40 g caster sugar.

What you do - I roasted the rhubarb while the Frangipane Tart was cooking. If roasting separately, preheat oven to 160C. Remove any rhubarb leaves completely and discard (they are poisonous). Wash hands. Cut stems on a diagonal in 6 cm batons. Slice lengthways in half if pieces are very thick. Rinse in a colander. Peel and slice ginger into thin disks. Place rhubarb in a baking pan large enough to hold the rhubarb in a single layer with room around the pieces. Put rhubarb, ginger, juice and sugar in baking pan and massage ingredients together. Place a sheet of baking paper over the rhubarb and then cover tightly with foil. Roast for 10-30 minutes, checking every 10 minutes, being careful not to be burnt by escaping steam. When cooked to your liking, remove from the oven to cool with the baking paper on top. Store the rhubarb covered in the fridge to top on porridge, granola, pancakes or yoghurt. Leave the ginger in the rhubarb mix while storing, but remove before eating.

The Farmoir is one of my favourite literary genres and Helen Rebanks' 'The Farmer's Wife' has been added to our cookbook shelf with more than 60 recipes and Helpful Lists including Pantry Staples, Favourite Cookbooks, and Meals for When I'm in Survival Mode. The Rebanks' story will be familiar to those who have read James Rebanks' 'The Shepherd's Life' and 'English Pastoral.' It is generous of Helen to share her experience of their farm, family, home and community in the Lakes District of England. As you can imagine, it is not all bucolic bliss and gives the reader insight into the realities of putting food on the table, whether it's as farmers or parents. Helen and James Rebanks will be guests at the Grounded Australia farming and food conference in the Huon Valley, Tasmania from December 4-5, 2024, joining speakers presenting more than 40 talks and 'walkshops,' enjoying good food, company, and music. I made Helen's Coffee Cake and there were appreciative noises from our family, and second helpings all round. This is a book that I'll re-read to immerse myself in the Cumbrian faming landscape, and dip into for recipes from an experienced professional and family cook.

Coffee Cake from Helen Rebanks' The Farmer's Wife

Prep 45 minutes. Cook 20-25 minutes. Serves 8.

What you need: For the Cake - 170g/6oz unsalted butter at room temperature, 170g/6oz soft light brown sugar, 3 eggs, 170g/6oz self-raising flour, 2 tbsp strong coffee (I made a stovetop espresso, Helen suggests 6 tsp of instant coffee mixed into 5 or 6 tbsp of boiling water for the cake, filling and topping).

For the buttercream filling - 50g/2oz softened unsalted butter, 100g/4oz sifted icing sugar, 1 tbsp strong coffee, 1 tbsp whole milk.

For the coffee fudge frosting - 170g/6oz icing sugar, 25g/1oz unsalted butter, 50g/2oz soft brown sugar, 2 tbsp single cream, 2 tbsp strong coffee, walnut halves to decorate.

What you do: 1. Heat the oven to 180 C/fan 160 C/gas. Grease and line 2 x 20 cm round cake tins. For the cake, use a large mixing bowl or stand mixer to whisk the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl to combine.

2. Add one egg at a time with a little flour to stop the mix curdling, then add the rest of the flour.

3. Beat in the strong coffee until combined. Scrape the cake batter into the two lined cake tins, denting the centre of the mixture to help them rise evenly.

4. Bake in the middle of the oven for 25-30 minutes, checking them after 20 minutes, aiming for golden and springy to touch and no raw cake mix when tested with a skewer. Cool in tins for 10 minutes before tipping onto cake racks to cool completely.

5. For the filling, whisk the soft butter before adding the icing sugar.

6. Add the coffee and milk and whisk thoroughly until smooth. Cover and leave to set in the fridge.

7. When the cakes are completely cool, turn one onto a serving plate, gently spread with the cooled buttercream and then place the second cake on top.

8. To make the topping, sift the icing sugar into a heatproof bowl.

9. Put all the other ingredients into a pan (butter, sugar, cream and coffee) and heat, watching closely so it doesn't burn, until it boils and rises. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the hot mixture steadily into the icing sugar. Use a balloon whisk to beat the mixture until smooth and fudge-like.

10. Top the cake with the fudge frosting while it's still warm, spreading with a metal palette knife. Decorate the top with walnut halves. I coated walnut halves with a dusting of icing sugar and stirred over a low heat before forming a cluster on the cake.

The anticipation of a golden evening at The Dinner Party at Windy Station starts long before passing through the Windy Station gates. The awe of driving through the Liverpool Plains at sunset, past expansive paddocks of bright yellow canola, grazing cattle, and large irrigation rigs, fills you with pride that this is one of the most productive food growing regions in Australia.

Entering the 24,000-hectare property Windy Station the big agriculture theme continues, seeing the extraordinary Windy Woolshed where workers sheared 60,000 sheep when it was built in 1901. The Dinner Party at Windy Station is the first of a calendar of biannual events to bring visitors to the Liverpool Plains to experience the incredible landscape, heritage, and local, seasonal food. Windy Station agritourism manager Clare Lee brings together like minded foodies to give guests a memorable destination dining experience. Last night’s The Dinner Party at Windy Station grouped food writer, Sophie Hansen, chef Cathy Armstrong, and In Two Minds winemaker Kate Day to toast “food as a backdrop to connection.”

Cathy’s menu featuring humble good flavours, and Clare’s welcoming long table created the feeling of a big family dinner, buoyed by Sophie’s compelling interviewing and storytelling. Regional ingredients included Colly Creek Pastoral Company beef, Arc-en-ciel Trout pate, Mudgee Olives, and Reverence Sourdough. Thank you to the Windy Station team and guests for elevating the work of agricultural communities to feed and clothe us, and awareness of the Liverpool Plains’ epic contribution.

For more Windy Station see Liverpool Plains Sunflower Trail 

When our new kitchen was installed late last year I never imagined that the weight bearing steel beam across the centre of the room would be used for hanging smallgoods. Turns out it is the perfect environment for air drying pancetta, guanciale, bacon and coppa hanging from butchers hooks and cooking twine in ideal autumn humidity and temperature. Re-installing our wood fire, which raised the room temperature, thankfully coincided with taking the smallgoods down and wrapping them in butchers paper for storage in the fridge and freezer. 

This year we raised an intact boar for five months and for the first time Duncan handled the kill and butchering with the help of our teenage sons.  Even at just five months old the boar weighed more than 100 kg and wasn't easy to move. Duncan adapted an old four burner gas barbecue, cutting it down to rest on the ground and heat a claw foot bath to scalding temperature. We borrowed a mobile cool room from neighbours and cooled the carcass before Duncan began butchering half using UK/American cutting methods, and half Italian.

The Italian cuts were air dried in our kitchen for six weeks and we still have diced pork, shoulders, and hams to be made into sausages - with the convenience of an electric mincer.    

It is a joy to cook what Stanley Tucci calls the famous pastas of Rome, carbonara, all gricia and all'amatriciana, using homegrown, home butchered guanciale and pancetta.

For more pork see Porkucopia of smallgoods and fresh cuts 30/7/23.

Image above by Josh Jay

‘You can do it’ and ‘Start early’ are two phrases from Annabelle Hickson’s ‘A Tree in the House’ DIY flower book that replayed in my mind as my daughter Isabelle, her groom Ben, family, friends, and I arranged their wedding flowers.

I have witnessed Annabelle transform a shearing shed with clouds of cotton, and chandeliers of gum leaves, as well as a convent with explosions of autumn leaves. Annabelle even worked her floral magic on our shop verandah for a Book Lunch among the launch events for ‘A Tree in the House.’

When Isabelle and Ben announced their engagement and started planning a wedding at our village of Nundle in north west NSW I was confident we could wrangle zip ties, chicken wire, flowers and foliage into joyful displays of seasonal colour.

Not only did we attempt DIY wedding flowers, but we supplied 30kg of lamb, 10kg of desiree potatoes, honey, tomatoes, eggplant, herbs and pears for the wedding feast by Armidale caterer Cathy Armstrong of Kinship Kitchen Cafe. The groom brew three beers and made a keezer - a keg refrigerator.

I answered an Instagram post by Mandy at The White Cottage Flower Farm,Tenterfield, selling Cafe au Lait dahlia tubers. The tubers and timber stakes went in the ground after Melbourne Cup Day, when the risk of frost was likely passed. I was an excited, expectant mother, inspecting the soil for signs of dahlias sprouting. When the stems emerged I supported them, gently tying them to the timber stakes. The first flowers appeared six weeks before the wedding. They just had to keep blooming.

Friends checked in on the dahlia progress, one confessing, "For some reason I just fear for them being eaten by something, sheep, insects…"

As the wedding date approached I began to panic that I couldn’t find my copy of ‘A Tree in the House.’ It had been stored with almost every other book we own during our 18 month house renovation, and no matter which cardboard box I opened, it was nowhere to be found.

I even attempted to buy a second copy, but the Tamworth bookshop was out of stock. 

In the continuing desperate search I looked in a different room and there it was. I latched onto it like a security blanket, and that night read it cover to cover for the second time. With ‘A Tree in the House’ in my hands, I felt we could attempt anything - even boutonnieres.

For weeks I had been anxiously observing the deciduous trees in our yard and around town for signs of autumn colour. Ten days before Isabelle and Ben’s wedding Izzy sent me a text message from Newcastle, ‘How are the local trees looking at the moment? Any yellow?’

Things were grim on the local autumn foliage front, but I responded with hope, ‘It’s still pretty green, but some good patches of colour’ accompanied by four photographs of gleditsia, acer and pistachio trees in our shop backyard with (small) patches of yellow.

A week later when we were scoping for autumn foliage in real life, an east coast low had stripped those specific trees of autumn leaves. 

The next day we returned with a tarp for gathering branches and a wire trug of gardening gloves and cutting implements, several secateurs, and various sized saws that I’d grabbed from my husband Duncan’s shed (he later told me one of the saws was for cutting metal).

Isabelle started cutting whipy lengths of box elder, apricot, and plum, chosen for their beautifully shaped leaves with hints of yellow or red. Golden raintree seed pods added bronze texture.

Izzy’s friends Tom, Mackenzie, Dom and Belle arrived and we issued them with gloves and secateurs, and they added foliage to the tarp. ‘It’s my first forage,’ Belle announced.

There were gleeful sounds from an alley beside our shop as Isabelle removed lengths of scarlett virginia creeper growing on our neighbour’s building.

A few text messages and phone calls to friends with beautiful gardens and we had access to stunning red and yellow autumn foliage that we’d spotted the day before; acer, golden ash, and oak.

‘Take as much as you want’ were generous words I heard several times. 

The day before the wedding we set the alarm for 6am knowing it was going to be a big day. I photographed Isabelle and Ben in front of the dahlias. Now that it was time to harvest, I was hesitant to cut them.

It took longer than expected to select the best flowers, remove their leaves and place them gently in tall buckets. I harvested three buckets of dahlias and left less perfect blooms in the garden. On the way to the car I added zinnias, medlar, and ornamental pear. 

When I arrived at the reception venue, Nundle Memorial Hall, Tom and Mackenzie had returned from Tamworth where they’d picked up four buckets of brightly coloured dahlias ordered from Shona at King George Flower Farm. 

Nundle friend Susi dropped off several buckets of hydrangeas, abelia, olive, and liquid amber from her garden.

Isabelle and I made a much anticipated visit to June’s Nundle garden and picked a bucket of roses, sedum, and salvia.

Back at the hall our land army of flower arrangers stacked glass bottles and jars on trestle tables, filled them with water and delicately placed stems in vessels, aiming for a combination of different heights and colours.

Isabelle’s Bridesman Tom dutifully held an orb of chicken wire as Izzy made her own Bridal Bouquet choosing her favourite flowers and foliage from our many buckets, dahlias, roses and and wispy, draping abelia and virginia creeper.

We were surrounded by friends and siblings filling enamel jugs and buckets, battery acid jars, even tea chests with arrangements of flowers and foliage.

In the hall Ivory Lane Events Styling created an autumn foliage ceiling installation - our confidence didn’t extend to suspending branches above guests’ heads. But we’d probably have the confidence now.

Isabelle had her heart set on floral nests to create an arc-shaped altar in the paddock where the ceremony was planned. When the bride-to-be pleaded, “Mum can you make the floral nests, they’re stressing me out’ I repeated Annabelle’s mantra in my head, ‘You can do it.’

With chicken wire in plastic tubs placed inside an antique timber dough kneading basin I created an altar centrepiece, weaving lengths of oak, ornamental pear, acer and gleditsia foliage with dahlias, roses and zinnias. I am sure Annabelle was occupying my mind and body. I had never done this before and yet somehow it was coming together.

We stored the floral nests in a cool mud room at the ceremony site, our neighbours’ property, ready to be moved into place the next day, and closed the door on the flower decorated hall to meet wedding guests at the pub. The day of the wedding I opened the mud room and it smelled like a florists’ shop, a pleasing fecund scent of moisture, vegetation, and floral perfume.

The bride and groom arrived together and we waited in the house before Isabelle would walk to the altar…only there was no bouquet. It was back at their accommodation, a half hour return trip. Who knew how to access the accommodation and where to find the bouquet? The Best Man. So began a very long 30 minute wait to spot plumes of dust signalling Best Man Dom’s return. Bouquet removed from its vase, stems dried with a tea towel, and safely in the bride’s hands it was time for Isabelle to walk down the grass aisle to Ben and floral nests, made with love.

Duncan has declared that we do not need any more cook books, which is a fair call considering our vast collection from more than 30 years of adult cooking, and many timeless classics inherited from our relatives. Yet 'Rick Stein from Venice to Istanbul' arrived in the mail, ordered by Duncan, as a present for me! We love a Rick Stein program and enjoyed the Rick Stein from Venice to Istanbul series on SBS On Demand. Although we do not live in a Mediterranean climate, the dishes cooked in the series featured many of the ingredients we grow on our small farm; lamb, pork, honey, eggs, zucchini, eggplant, capsicum, potatoes, silverbeet, and beans, and the herbs basil, thyme, sage, rosemary, and parsley. This summer Rick's book has rarely left the kitchen bench and we've enjoyed multiple sittings of Eggs with Tomato, Red Peper & Green Chillies, Lamb & Pistachio Kofte, Chicken & Tomato Stew, Moussaka, and Greek Salad, with many more recipes to explore. The Moussaka below makes excellent use of an abundant eggplant, zucchini and potato harvest and tastes so good we made it twice in four days. If you're looking for an excellent dish to share with family and friends over Easter, give it a try.

Moussaka, Rick Stein from Venice to Istanbul

What you need: Salt, 1 aubergine, thinly sliced lengthways, 3 courgette, thinly sliced lengthways, 300ml olive oil, 2 large potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced lengthways, 2 small onions, diced, 2 cloves garlic, diced, 750g minced beef, 3 beefsteak tomatoes (or 6-8 Roma tomatoes), roughly chopped, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 bay leaf, 12 turns of black peppermill. For the bechamel: 100ml butter, 100g plain flour, 750ml full-fat milk, 3 eggs, 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg, 150g grated cheese (Rick suggests graviera or Gruyere).

What you do: Salt the aubergine and eggplant slices in a bowl, leaving them for about 30 minutes, then rinse, drain, and dry on paper towel. Fry in a generous amount of olive oil over a medium heat until lightly browned and starting to soften. Drain on paper towel and set aside. I found it useful to stack the aubergine and courgette separately. Fry the potatoes in the same way.

In a separate pan, heat about 70ml of the olive oil and fry the onion and garlic until softened (5-7 minutes). Add the minced beef and brown before adding tomatoes, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the pepper. Simmer for 30-40 minutes. When done remove the bay leaf and cinnamon stick.

In a deep oven proof dish, 24 x 35cm as a guide, arrange the potatoes to cover the base of the pan. Then layer with one third of the beef, then the aubergine, another third of the beef, the courgettes, and finish with the remaining beef.

Heat the oven to 220C (I found 200C was better in a fan forced oven to avoid browning the top). To make the bechamel sauce, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over a low heat, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk and incorporate by stirring until the sauce thickens. Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs, nutmeg and 100g of grated cheese. Spread the bechamel over the layered meat and vegetables, and top with 50g of grated cheese. Bake for 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool. Serve warm. Holds well to reheat. 

“You look like a mushroomer,” is how my friend Alena greets me as I arrive at her place for a mushrooming expedition in the state forest near our homes in north west NSW. Without any prior discussion we are twinning in long sleeved checked shirts, long pants, boots, and hats. “Do you have a knife?” Yes. “Do you have a bucket?” I have a wire basket and timber trug. ‘Uniform’ and gear sorted we make the short car journey to Nundle State Forest at Hanging Rock to look for Pine Mushrooms, also known as Saffron Milk Caps.

Duncan and I have lived at Nundle for 25 years and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to go mushrooming in the forest. Field mushrooms we are familiar with, and pounce on at every emergence. Forest mushrooms have always seemed more mystical and unknown. I have numerous friends who collect mushrooms every autumn, there are holiday house owners with European heritage who make a point of being in Nundle every autumn to collect mushrooms, and I’ve seen campers at nearby Sheba Dams sitting at large tables stringing mushrooms for drying. Mushrooming was part of Alena’s Russian childhood and I feel safe under her tutelage.

We pull up on the side of the road and venture under the pine forest canopy and walk between the rows of plantings. It is unusually quiet walking on a cushion carpet of pine needles, and still, sheltered by the pine tree roof, although we can hear wind in the distance. We both sense the surreal atmosphere of the darkness under the canopy, yet between the tree trunks we can see bright sunlight shining on the open road 100 metres away. 

Alena is worried that the canopy is too thick and there is not enough sunlight reaching the forest floor for the mushrooms to grow. The only treasure we find are the remains of an old house, crushed corrugated iron, and old bottles. Alena asks, “Does this bottle interest you? Property of McWilliams Wines.” While McWilliams dates back to 1877, this brown glass bottle is likely a more recent remnant. Neither of us need more objects in our lives.

With no sign of mushrooms we move our hunt further north, looking for younger trees and a more open part of the forest. I am happy for the long sleeves and pants as protection from blackberry snags. Sure enough as soon as we see dappled light on the forest floor we see mushrooms. They are not easy to spot, camouflaged under the russet pine needles. Alena’s more experienced eye spots the tell-tale pine needle mounds to uncover the mushrooms. As I kneel down to brush away the pine needles and cut the mushroom stalk at ground level, she says, “Careful, you’re sitting on some!” Alena kindly offers some of the mushroom mounds she finds for me to pick. Slowly I learn to see mushrooms among the pine needles; the little raised mounds of pine needles, sometimes a glimpse of a mushroom cap or side, occasionally a whole mushroom cap exposed with a small tuft of pine needles. The prize mushroom is the curve edged orange cap, with healthy orange gills. Some of the mushrooms are starting to dry out, but Alena assures me they rehydrate during pickling. Those that are way too dry we leave to compost.

On our walk back to the car Alena talks me through her process of soaking the mushrooms in brine and pickling them in spices. Even in less than ideal conditions Alena has nearly a bucket full of Pine Mushrooms and I have covered the base of my trug. She suggests we return three days after the next rain when we probably won’t even need to search for mushrooms they’ll be so prolific. Back at home I use Milkwood Permaculture’s mushroom pickling instructions. My family are dubious about the wild mushrooms, but I assure them our mushrooms look just like the Saffron Milk Caps in our references. With a generous jar of brined mushroom pickle, I am impressed by the volume of free protein fermenting in the pantry. Alena says, “I just think of the way they taste.”

If you’d like to learn more about mushrooming please explore the links below:

https://www.forestrycorporation.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/438240/mushrooming-in-nsw-state-forests.pdf.pdf

https://www.oberonaustralia.com.au/visitor-information/things-to-see-do/mushroom-picking/

https://www.diegobonetto.com/

https://www.milkwood.net/2014/03/12/how-to-go-mushroom-foraging-this-autumn-if-you-live-near-sydney/

https://www.milkwood.net/2022/09/19/pickled-mushrooms-recipe/

Warning and disclaimer. Some mushrooms are poisonous. If in doubt, go without. Seek out an experienced mushroomer for guidance.

What began as an admiration of the botanical artworks of Chef Sean Moran through social media and in Galah magazine led Upper Peel Landcare Group to propose a Nundle Community Garden mural by local artist Natasha Soonchild celebrating the homegrown food and gardening culture of Nundle and Hanging Rock. Because of Nundle's distance from large centres, the closest regional city being 50 kilometres away, the town has a history of proactive self-sufficiency. This shows in the many community members who grow their own food, a cheaper, more flavoursome and lower food miles alternative to regularly travelling to Tamworth. This horti-culture draws the community together sharing the experience of battling the weather and pestilence, harvesting, cooking, swapping, preserving, pickling and fermenting. Natasha's mural, made possible by Tamworth Regional Council's Public Art Fund, tells this story and more.

Natasha grew up in Nundle and after studying and working elsewhere, returned to Nundle and opened Stormcrow Studio. In Natasha's artist's statement she writes, "This mural tells a story inspired by the verdant environment of Nundle through the prism of old botanical drawings, a great passion of mine. My aim was for it to be a poetic storytelling showcasing the abundance of our local nature and connection to the land. It is a celebration of nature, its colours, variety, poetry and tenacity. Thank you to the Nundle Land Care Group, the Nundle Community Garden and Tamworth Gallery for trusting me with this mural, I hope it shows the love I hold for this land, its people and the magic I feel at the heart of Nundle. "

Falcon enamel saucepan with timber handle, $27.95, and glass butter dish, $25.95.

Over the years we have helped friends with their pig growing efforts and processing, and were well aware of just how good home grown pork could be, but had never tackled the challenge on our own place. Now in the midst of a porkucopia of bacon, pancetta, guanciale, English ham, pulled pork shoulder and fresh cuts that will last us for the year ahead, it’s difficult to understand why we hesitated so long.

Our first experience of raising weaner pigs was watching them head toward Nundle on the main road after they had breached the portable electric fence on the evening of their arrival. We gently coaxed them back in, and although they would test the tape every day from then on, they never repeated that first glorious dash.

Settling into a rhythm of twice daily feeds and weekly moves onto fresh pasture, the advantages of keeping pigs above and beyond their meat became obvious. They consumed hundreds of kilos of unused Jerusalem artichokes, fruit, prunings, and mountains of greens. The conversion of wormy fruit from waste to ‘windfall’ was the biggest revelation. Fat pigs and a huge fruit harvest thanks to the much reduced fruit fly problem over the fly season.

They were so useful as fruit disposal units that we were reluctant to slaughter them before the season was through. More knowledgeable friends asking whether we were going to breed them, and one in particular warned that ‘as a spider becomes smaller when you kill it, pigs become bigger’.

While we have plenty of affection for our sheep and will always insist that ‘sheep aren’t just sheep,’ pigs are possessed of a little more charisma. And although we swore there would be no names it’s hard not to notice that there is a ‘Miss Personality’ and ‘The Quiet One,’ and it made slaughter day quite different to what we experience with our lambs. But with temperatures dropping, the fruit all gone and confronted by two, now very large pigs, we decided to call in the expertise of John Davis of Big John’s Mobile Butcher. John quickly and humanely killed them and with our extra muscle had them scalded, dressed and hanging in a portable cool room in no time with a total dressed weight of 180kg. We broke them down after the carcasses had hung for a week and then the real magic of pork, salt curing and smoke began to happen. Our sons could not be happier at the sight of an almost bottomless supply of maple-cured bacon, and simple pasta dishes become something else with the addition of homemade pancetta and guanciale.

We’ll definitely raise pigs again, shortening their growing season to balance taking advantage of our windfall fruit, handling smaller carcasses, and hanging meat in the cooler months. Spring will be here before we know it and the cycle will start again.

Useful references:

The Gourmet Farmer Deli Book by Matthew Evans, Nick Haddow & Ross O'Meara

The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing, and Sausage Making by Philip Hasheider

Charcuterie, The craft of salting, smoking & curing by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn

Pea and Ham Soup

What you need: 40 g butter, chopped, 2 onions, finely chopped, 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped, 2 ham hocks (800 g each), 750 g dried green split peas, 360 g frozen green peas. Sourdough to serve.

What to do: Heat butter in a large saucepan over low-medium heat, add onion and garlic and cook until soft (10-12 minutes). Add ham hocks, cover with cold water, bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low and cook until ham is falling off the bone (1-1 1/2 hours). Remove hocks, set aside to cool, and when cool enough, remove skin and bone and discard. Shred meat coarsely and set aside. 

Add split green peas to stock and simmer until tender (45 minutes to 1 hour). Add frozen peas and simmer for 1-2 minutes until bright green. Puree in a blender in batches, add shredded ham hock to soup, season to taste and serve with toasted and buttered sourdough.

Dressed in an Akubra hat, long-sleeved shirt, and jeans, 93-year-old Ivan Inman walks in a paddock, a length of metal rod rotating quickly in his hand, a crop duster aerial forcefully flicking through the air, or a steel bolt circling from a short length of frayed baling twine.

Ivan is demonstrating the skill of divining, looking for underground water, to give a drilling team a better idea of where to drill a bore or well, and at what depth.

The term water divining might conjure ‘The Water Diviner’ film directed by and starring Russell Crowe. When his character Joshua Connor is asked how he finds water that seeps through cracks in the earth underground he explains, ‘…well there’s the trick, you have to feel it…’

Ivan’s skills are in strong demand in rural areas where the worst drought on record remains a fresh scar in people’s memories and they dread the return of drier than usual El Nino weather conditions. Water security is top of mind for farmers and townies alike, who rattle off dam levels and rainfall figures with great familiarity and interest. It’s that important. Their livelihoods and communities depend on it.

In 2019 artist Fintan Magee chose a water diviner as a bush icon to paint a 40-metre-high mural on three grain silos at Barraba, again in north-west NSW, now part of the Australian Silo Art Trail Collection.

Demand for water sees Ivan travelling hundreds of kilometres in any given week to visit properties from the Upper Hunter to the Queensland border. In one six-year period he travelled 300,000km. He looks for water for drillers to sink bores to provide water for livestock, or irrigation for broadacre crops like wheat and cotton.

He loves the travelling. It is not unusual for him to leave home at 2am, drive five hours through the night and then divine six bores in one day. He says he doesn’t overcharge because he has all that he needs, three landowners sharing the $300 bill for an upcoming job.

Ivan recalls his first exposure to water divining through his father George Inman. As a 10-year-old kid Ivan would travel his father in a horse and sulky from their home at Nundle to properties divining maybe once or twice a year. He says he might have been first paid for divining in his twenties and fitted it in on weekends between full-time work farming, truck and dozer driving, and green keeping.

“I never ever advertised. People just found me by word of mouth. That’s how it went. People knew I could do it so they just passed the word around. You get a name for it,” Ivan says in his inter-war, pre-Depression era modest disposition.

It’s a skill that’s taken him to four states, his home state NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland. He estimates he’s divined about 5,000 bores throughout his life and says one driller reckons he has a 98 per cent success rate for them and they don’t like drilling bores that Ivan hasn’t divined. The jobs are recorded in books filled with names, and there are more names he never wrote down.

Some diviners use L-rods, forked sticks or pendulums to help them look for water, others responding to patterns in the movement of their tools.

“I used to use a Number 8 wire [British Standard gauge] years ago, until my hands weren’t gripping good enough so you get a false reading. I had this quarter inch rod at home and I just bent it,” Ivan says.

When he’s divining Ivan likes to look around and observe the lay of the ground. He can end up walking for several kilometres, but doesn’t usually notice the distance because he’s concentrating on what he’s doing. It’s when he’s back home at Nundle, or staying with his granddaughter at Nabiac, fatigue sets in and he can find himself in bed at 7.30pm when his son tries to phone him.

Ivan says he’s not a talker, but he’s happy if a landowner wants to join him and talk as he walks, observing any rock formations that might inform his work. He doesn’t feel anything physical when he is divining, it is the movement of the rod that indicates the presence of an underground stream.

“I ask the person where they want water, like close to electricity, and there might be nothing. There’s places where you can’t get water.

“When I find a good pull, I look for a cross stream. I don’t feel nothing in the body, just the movement of the rod. At the edge of it, it goes one way, and when I hit the middle, it spins the other way.

“If I find a stream and it’s not wide enough, well you don’t worry about it. If I find a stream that’s 60-100 metres across it, well it’s worth having a go.”

Reflecting on the recent three-year drought, Ivan agrees it was one of the longest he’s lived through. He witnessed desperation, with sheep and cattle in poor condition, and landowners exhausted from carting feed and water to livestock.

“The drought was getting worse and worse and people wanted water. That’s the way Australia is, you either get lots of rain, or no rain.

“If you haven’t got water, well you’re dead. Even camels got to have it.”

Ivan is not always on a property when the drillers find the bore water he’s led them to, but he was divining at Gravesend in the state’s north-west and the property owners were extremely grateful that he’d found water after they’d previously drilled three dry holes.

“When I came back from breakfast the lady of the place smothered me in kisses and cuddles. I didn’t think I could come up for air.”

Ivan has tried to pass water divining on to his children and grandchildren. “I tried them, but they haven’t got it.” It saddens him to have doubts about water divining continuing, but he’s grateful to have a loving family and considers himself “one of the luckiest men alive”.

He knows of other water diviners, but doesn’t know any well. He recalls a fellow from nearby Quirindi who spent some time with him wanting to learn water divining, but he doesn’t know if he kept it up. He hopes he did.

He’s pleased to use his skill, even at 93. “If I’m not doing something I feel like I’m loafing. What the hell am I here for if I can’t do something.” His strong work ethic has meant he’s never been out of work, but he puts his longevity down to pure luck.

Ivan laughs at the thought that water divining could be considered supernatural or in another time, even witchcraft.

“I’m just lucky I can do it, and while I can do it successfully, I’ll keep doing it.”

Postscript: Ivan is no longer working. However, he found an apprentice Dee Humbles, from Hanging Rock, near Nundle, who he recognises as also having the gift.

It started as a joke. One of our walking group members, Tash, sharing a social media post back in March about a trek crossing the mountain range between our town of Nundle, and Timor in the Upper Hunter Valley with the comment, "This looks interesting."

Tash wasn't expecting actual positive responses ranging from, "I have to check dates" to "I am KEEN!!!!" and "Let's register a team."

We began exercising as a group in February, answering a call out from Oakenville Farm Store owner Rachel Webster looking for participants in a FebFast Healthy Habits Reset after the indulgent festive season.

Our small town may have a small population of 600, but we are fortunate to have two fitness professionals, both called Rachel, motivating women from their thirties to their sixties to keep moving, and stay strong. Between Rachel Webster and Rachel Schofield we usually have access to four group fitness classes a week, including weights, circuit, bodyweight, and pilates workouts.

Our FebFast Healthy Habits Reset was only meant to last a month, starting with power walking to push ourselves a little more physically and make some nutritional improvements. Rachel Webster is studying herbal medicine and gave us a startup gift of mostly homegrown, dehydrated super greens powder to add to smoothies and help with our detox.

Throughout the month Rachel encouraged us to try wellbeing therapies including an Ionic Foot Detox, Infrared Sauna, Cold Showers, Daily Gratitude Diary, Meditation, and after dinner walk or 'constitutional' (a walk for one's health). We were also encouraged to try Time Restricted Eating and cut out or back on alcohol, sugar and carbohydrates.

It wasn't long before our power walks turned into short runs, and our motivation and discipline thrived with the support, encouragement, and friendship of the group. We were so keen we even started walking when our coach Rachel wasn't available, and were sharing healthy recipes in our group chat.

By mid month we were walking 6km within an hour easily. In week three we talked about extending our Healthy Habits into March. That's how we found ourselves mid month nervously contemplating signing up to a 42km Timor to Nundle Trek 2023 at the end of May.

In eight weeks we aimed to get some serious hill kilometres in our legs and discovered many beautiful walking routes surrounding Nundle, including Nundle Cemetery, Nundle Pony Club, Nundle Golf Course, River Road, Happy Valley Road, and Oakenville Creek Road. We shared our walking routes and statistics, screenshoting various fitness apps, and uploading to our group chat. If we couldn't walk around Nundle we'd post walks from wherever we were...Tamworth, Mid North Coast, Gold Coast, Philippines. 

Rachel set the bar high with a 10km return walk up the steep Barry Road climbing to a notorious s-bend known as Devil's Elbow below Hanging Rock. Within two weeks our group had completed this challenging walk several times. By May we tackled a 20km return walk from Teamsters' Rest up and over  the top of Crawney Pass, less than half the route of our 42km trek.

With each new milestone distance we felt an incredible sense of achievement and growth. On the eve of our 42km walk we gathered for a stretch to prepare our muscles and mindset, then returned home to pack our backpacks with lollies, energy balls, sandwiches, water, energy drinks, bandaids, spare socks and leggings(!).

Our fellow walker Kristie collected us in the dark at 5.45am and dropped us off at the starting point, Timor Station. We shed excess jumpers, coats and torches into Kristie's car and started nervously jumping around in our beanies and gloves to keep warm in the frost.

Kristie's photograph of us in the pink sunrise with mist pooling in the valley captures our excited anticipation. Having driven the route we had mentally broken it up into achievable sections; 10km of sealed road, 7km of gravel road to a causeway water crossing, then a 5km steep climb, 6km mostly downhill through Crawney National Park, and 14km of unsealed and sealed road winding through the Upper Peel Valley to the Nundle pub.

We were so eager that we set off at a cracking pace, but still had time to take in the beauty of the morning and the landscape; striking grass trees, weatherboard farmhouses and corrugated iron shearers' quarters, Isis River noisily weaving across its rock bed, morning light streaming through silky oaks, and curious cattle grazing on the roadside. Two dead black snakes were a startling surprise in the cold.

The last 10km of the walk were the hardest. The landscape was familiar and our bodies were starting to complain. We didn't dare inspect burning blistered feet and ignored painful joints from the waist down.  An unexpected cheer squad kept us going. Family members met us along the last three kilometres, in their driveways and cars, hooting, clapping, and making us laugh. At every rural property number (measured from the Nundle Post Office) we counted down the kilometres. With one kilometre to go Liz, a walking friend from Timor, let me in on a mantra she had used in previous long distance events, "I am tough, I am strong."  As I chanted the mantra in my head, we placed one foot in front of the other, stepping closer to the finish line, The Peel Inn.

Shopkeeper friends stood in front of their Jenkins Street businesses and clapped. Event organisers and already finished walkers, including our own Rachel Schofield, congratulated us with more cheering, laughing and clapping. Our smiles at the end of the event show how happy we were to attempt and conquer a physical and mental challenge, that normally would have been out of our reach. The champagne we had been looking forward to went down very easily. We hobbled on our seized up legs and feet to fill our plates with cheese and biscuits.

Nearly two weeks since the walk we received an email from walk organisers Dayna and Jenn, announcing that at that point the event raised $5,250 towards providing a 30 per cent subsidy for family passes to Murrurundi Pool. Donations can be made to Lions Club of Murrurundi Inc Activities, BSB 932-000, Account 300 005 114. We even had a special mention in the email, 'We were super impressed with the Nundle ladies who spent the whole time chirpy (so it seemed). Not sure how you ladies managed to stay so chipper but well done!!'

Our group is still walking and working out together. Now a 6km walk seems so short. New fitness app screenshots appear in our group chat, running and walking intervals training for our next challenge, to run the Tamworth TEN 10km fun run. Or could we make the half marathon?

Photography by Kristie Whitten, Megan Trousdale, Tash Moore, Laura Pratt, Liz Watts.

For the 2022 Tamworth Regional Heritage Week I explored A Taste of Nundle, researching Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores' collection of handwritten and typed invoices and purchase documents to understand some of the ingredients stocked in the store from its earliest surviving records.

Among the documents in our collection is a handwritten sales journal from 1909, giving us a snapshot of what ingredients people living in and around Nundle bought, and prompting ideas of what they may have cooked with them. Consider the contrast in the range of choice of ingredients available in 1909 to 2022. 

We had previously been part of an Heirloom Recipe project with Sydney Living Museum Colonial Gastronomer Jacqui Newling who visited Nundle in 2014. This  uncovered evocatively named Nundle biscuit recipes including Poorman’s Cakes, Waddie's Saddlebags, and Dunkers. These and other local favourite recipes are collected in Lost Delights: Heirloom Recipes and Old Country Favourites.

What these recipes and the groceries sold at Odgers and McClelland have in common are simple ingredients that are easy to store, and have on hand in bulk. Think dried fruit like dates, raisins, sultanas, and currants, canned goods like Golden Syrup, and the spices, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Jacqui's book, 'Eat Your History' provided an opportunity to cook a couple of recipes that reflect some of the staple ingredients sold at the store and commonly stocked in pantries, including a contribution attributed to a Tamworth woman, Mrs Gaffney’s Date and Walnut Cake, and Sago Plum Pudding. 

The jar of sago and Sago Plum Pudding prompted several conversations about memories of kitchen canisters marked with ingredients names, such as sago. Coincidently, our antiques dealer neighbour Mark Delahunt from Jenkins Street Antiques and Fine China has a porcelain Art Deco sago canister in his shop window. 

There were also discussions about how to steam puddings in a pudding bowl; placing the pudding batter in a greased bowl, topping with a circle of baking paper, and a double layer of foil tied with string, and gently cooked in a water bath in the oven.

It was most touching to observe the fond memories of family cooks, commonly mothers, aunts, grandmothers, rekindled by the scent of spices, a traditional enamel or ceramic bowl, or kitchen tools.

The take out from our Heritage Week experience is that generations of our family history and influences are very much reflected in the food we've eaten throughout our lives, and even what we choose to cook today.

Mrs Gaffney's Date and Nut Cake, a 'particularly good cake' from Eat Your History by Jacqui Newling

What you need: 185 ml (3/4 cup) milk, 200 g pitted dates, roughly chopped, 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 340 g (2 cups) plain flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 225 g butter, 225 g (1 cup) white granulated sugar, 3 eggs, 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped.

What you do: Heat milk in a large saucepan over low heat until just bubbling. Remove pan from the heat and add dates and bicarbonate of soda. Set aside for 1 hour, allowing dates to absorb milk and soften.

Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan-forced). Place oven rack in centre of oven or one rung lower. Grease a large loaf tin or square cake tin and line with baking paper.

Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl, adding pinch of salt.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating to combine well before adding the next. Add dates and remaining milk, and stir in sifted flour and walnuts.

Spoon cake batter into prepared tin and bake for 1-1 1/4 hours or until skewer inserted in centre of cake comes out clean. If cake is browning too quickly cover with two sheets of baking paper.

 From Tilly's Table The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 49}, Sunken Chocolate Cake.

"The end of this week, and the end of first term, demanded a serious cake. I found only chocolate would do and this one - a crackly, sunken, dense cocoa number - seemed only fitting. Rustic in the extreme, but rather refined in the eating. Serve with double cream or just dive in with a spoon." 

What you need: 360g dark chocolate, 150g unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (40ml) strong espresso coffee, 1 tsp vanilla paste, Pinch of salt, 180g caster sugar, 5 eggs, large, separated, 1 tbsp plain flour.
 
What you do: Preheat your oven to 170°C (fan-forced) and grease and line the base and sides of a 22cm springform pan with butter and baking paper.
 
Place the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat. I like to use a double boiler. Stir constantly until chocolate and butter have melted and are well combined. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.
 
Combine cooled chocolate, coffee, vanilla, salt, half the caster sugar, egg yolks, and flour in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
 
With a stand mixer, whisk egg whites to soft peaks. Add remaining caster sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and continue to mix until egg whites hold stiff peaks.
 
Add a third of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and whisk to combine. Add remaining meringue and fold through gently, trying not to knock too much air out of the egg whites.
 
Pour batter into the lined cake tin and spread gently using a spatula. Place tin in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes, until cake has souffled and formed a crust, but is still a bit wobbly underneath.
 
Remove cake from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin – it will continue to cook as it cools. The cake with deflate and sink as it cools, creating a  crackly, rustic look.

Serve at room temperature for a mousse-like texture, or refrigerate and serve cold for a dense, fudgy cake.

This year, more than any other, we've had great interest in food preserving. It's one of our most frequently asked questions..."How do I get into preserving?" If you can slice, and have access to quantity of fruit and veg, empty glass jars, and a large pot, then you can get started with preserving.

When I was in my teens living on acreage on Sydney's rural fringe Mum and Dad would pick buckets of produce and bottle it in syrup, jam, pickles, and chutneys. Mum still speaks of the pride and joy she experienced sliding open their pantry door and seeing the bottled bounty produced from the garden. 

More than 20 years ago when Duncan and I moved to Nundle, friends were getting rid of preserving gear. We were given a burnt orange 1970s metal Fowlers Vacola preserver and dozens of jars and lids. We added an electric Fowlers preserver to our tool kit, and Mum has since given us their teal green 1940's metal preserver. Some seasons at the peak of the fruit and vegetable harvest they all get a work out. These days food preserving is being revived, with people seeing fruit on trees and vegetables in their garden as an asset not to be wasted.

If you are starting out it's probably best to use what is on hand as much as possible. If you have access to a Fowlers Vacola unit and a legacy of Fowlers jars and metal lids, fabulous. You can top up on rings and whatever you are short of (jars, lids, clips, thermometer, jar tongs, bottle opener). Otherwise start collecting empty glass jars and if you have a large pot, enough to hold half a dozen jars and fill with water half way up the jars, you're set. Once you have your kit together it's a lifelong resource.

Next, look for recipes, at home, in second hand shops or online, that you and your family will enjoy.  A good starting point is anything by the CWA, Sally Wise, or websites like Milkwood Permaculture. Sometimes I'll enter whatever I have excess of, beetroot for example, into a search engine and see what recipes turn up. Depending on what you want to make you might need to stock up on vinegar, sugar, herbs and spices. If you are consuming a small quantity of preserves within a week, refrigeration will prevent spoilage. If you want a longer shelf life, that's when heat processing in a hot water bath becomes essential. Before you know it you'll be dolloping homemade pickles onto cooked meats, jam onto toast, and fruit onto porridge.

With purpose built shelving storing pickled eggplant, capsicum, cucumber,  passata, plums, pears, apples and fejoa, now it's us enjoying that feeling of satisfaction at the preserved food on hand, reducing waste and cutting down food miles (and fuel usage). We just need to remind ourselves and the children to look for fruit bottled on the shelf instead of in the crisper drawer of the fridge. And it's us giving Mum and Dad food from our garden instead of the other way around. 

Our Favourite Bread and Butter Cucumber Pickles, from 'Cornersmith', Alex Elliott-Howery and James Grant

What you need: 2 kg cucumbers, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 litre (4 cups) white wine vinegar, 220 g (1 cup) caster sugar, 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric, 2 small brown onions, thinly sliced, 3 teaspoons brown mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons fennel seeds, 2 teaspoons dill seeds, 2 teaspoons chilli flakes, 12-18 black peppercorns.

What you do: Slice cucumbers thinly into rounds. Place in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and leave to sit for a couple of hours or overnight, to draw out excess liquid. Transfer to a large colander and drain.

Sterilise jars, washing in hot soapy water, rinse then place in a cold oven. Heat oven to 110C and leave for 10 minutes before removing carefully. Sterilise lids in a large saucepan of boiling water for five minutes, then leave to dry on wire rack or dry with clean paper towel.

Make a brine by combining vinegar, sugar, turmeric and 500 ml (2 cups) of water into medium non-reactive saucepan over low heat. Stir to dissolve sugar, then increase heat to bring to boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Use tongs or packing stick to pack cucumbers into jars (a wide mouth funnel helps), adding 2-3 peppercorns to each jar. Carefully fill the jars with hot brine, completely covering cucumbers and removing air bubbles sliding a skewer around inside of jar to release air pockets. Add more brine if needed, leaving 1 cm gap from rim of jar. Wipe rims and seal.

To heat process lay a folded tea towel in the bottom of your largest pan. Sit jars on tea towel, avoiding cramming jars or touching pan sides. Match water temperature to jar temperature to avoid jar breakage, pouring in enough water to cover jars either completely or three-quarters. Bring to boil over medium heat. Heat process for 10 minutes from boiling point. Carefully remove hot jars from water. Jar tongs are a good investment. Let them cool overnight. Remove lid clips if used and store in a cool, dark place for up to 12 months.  Once opened, store in refrigerator and use within a week.

Friends generously dropped in homegrown raspberries and, in addition to eating them fresh, I made Raspberry and Chocolate Tart. This is the perfect sense of occasion tart to acknowledge the March 10th anniversary of our Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores online store. In that time we've learnt a lot, worked on improving our photography, and continued to expand what we offer, helping customers across Australia (and sometimes New Zealand) grow food, preserve the harvest, and cook from scratch.

Establishing the online store was a significant move because it meant I could work from home and look after our two young boys instead of continuing to work for a wage elsewhere. It's meant I've been able to be more present at home and in the community, able to volunteer time to community events and fundraising. Our online sales now make up half of our business and of course do result in customers making a special trip to Nundle to see the physical store. It's also a lot of packages through the Nundle Post Office. 

To recognise this milestone, for the month of March we will donate 10 per cent of our online sales to flood relief for people impacted by the NSW and Queensland east coast low. Hopefully our donation will go towards helping families get back on their feet after such a blow.

Please join us in a slice of virtual Raspberry and Chocolate Tart, or make your own to share with loved ones.

Raspberry and Chocolate Tart (from The Weekend Australian Magazine, edited extract from 'Fruit: Recipes That Celebrate Nature' by Bernadette Worndl)

What you need

Pastry: 100g cold butter, 200g plain flour, 1 tablespoon icing sugar, Pinch of salt, 1 egg, milk as needed.

Filling: 300g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa), Pinch each of salt, ground cinnamon, and finely grated orange zest, 125g thickened cream, 1/2 teaspoon orange liquor.

Topping: 1-2 tablespoons raspberry jam, 250g raspberries, honey to drizzle.

What you do

Preheat oven to 180C. Line and grease a 20cm tart tin with removable base. Chop butter into cubes and place in a large bowl with flour, icing sugar and salt. With fingertips, rub butter into dry ingredients. Add egg and knead until smooth, adding milk if needed. Roll out or press pastry directly into prepared tart tin, until pastry is about 3mm thick. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Cover pastry with baking paper and pie weights and blind bake on lowest oven shelf for 10-15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and bake for a further 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. 

To make the filling, chop the chocolate and place in a bowl with salt, cinnamon and zest. Heat cream in a small saucepan and pour it over chocolate, allowing it to melt as you whisk until smooth, then add the liqueur if using. Spread jam over tart base. Pour and spread chocolate cream filling and leave to set at room temperature. Top with raspberries and drizzle with honey.

It’s 6.45am when I arrive at the gate of “Windy Station” near Pine Ridge on the Liverpool Plains in north west New South Wales, and Clare Lee is flipping over the signage to ‘Open’ on the first event of the first ever Liverpool Plains Sunflower Trail 2022.

Clare is president of The Plains agritourism group, a collaboration of seven farmers and business owners excited about bringing attention to the food and fibre grown in their region.

For the next month there is a program of eleven events including open days, a paddock long table dinner, yoga, boutique market, creative courses, a concert, and pick-your-own sunflowers in mature crops at five locations across an area of about 100 square kilometres from Willow Tree and Wallabadah in the east to Premer in the west.

I am the first customer and there are still logistics to organise. With potentially thousands of visitors expected in the next week, this is a military style operation with to-do lists, traffic cones and temporary fencing protecting pedestrians, and most importantly country hospitality demonstrated by printed sunflowers on star pickets leading us to the 140-hectare paddock of “sunnies”.

Clare offers me access to the iconic NSW heritage-listed Windy Woolshed, but I am keen to take advantage of the early morning light on the sunflowers. She introduces me to Windy Station staffer Bec Andrews, appropriately dressed in a cheerful sunflower printed shirt, who leads the way to the sunflower paddock.

Bec gives simple instructions as I head off with my camera, “Be careful of bees, snakes, and don’t get lost.”

The visual scale of the commercial sunflower crop doesn’t disappoint. In an earlier conversation with The Plains committee member Eleanor Pengilley, she described what local farmers have to offer as “epic agriculture”.

To give you an idea of the scale Windy Station is part of Romani Pastoral Company including properties at nearby Warrah and Premer covering 20,234 hectares, grazing 6,000 Black Baldy Hereford Angus cross cattle and a crop rotation of sorghum, cotton, canola, wheat, feed barley, mung beans, chickpeas and of course sunflowers.

Distinctively The Plains group is a move towards borderless tourism crossing traditional local government area boundaries, in this case the Upper Hunter, Liverpool Plains, Gunnedah, and Tamworth LGAs.

Coinciding with a peak holiday period for visiting family and friends this month there will be a lot of eyes within reach of the Liverpool Plains Sunflower Trail. Liverpool Plains Shire Council Visitor Information Centre distributes a Sunflower Alert email.

The Plains has attracted funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, recognising the need to give rural communities a leg up after years of drought, and more recently the COVID pandemic.

Walking among the sunflowers it is a sensual overload listening to the rustle of sunflower leaves shimmying in the wind. There are sunflowers for kilometres and my eye alternates from being drawn to the macro scale of row after row of golden sunflowers contrasting with twisted, gnarly gum trees bordering the paddock, and a flock of galahs and cockatoos feeding on sunflower seeds, taking flight as I approach, to the micro appeal of a bee collecting pollen, and the textural variation of delicate, thin, yellow petals, black and gold swaying seed heads, and elephant ear green foliage on wrist thick stems reaching above my head.

Preparing for my visit I Googled ‘How to photograph sunflowers’ and I was surprised by the search result volume. Photographing sunflowers is A Thing. Tips range from aperture and depth of field, to what to wear to contrast with the striking sunflowers, and how to pose. Who knew?

Local Quirindi-based photographer Sally Alden Photography posted practical tips on socials like checking flowering dates and opening hours, booking accommodation, filling car fuel tanks, and packing sunscreen, hats, snacks, water, maps and charged phone and camera batteries.

Bec and her team have created a path through the sunflowers and a spectacular vista opens up from the flat plain of sunflower heads to the ridge beyond. There is a platform made from enormous hay bales, for visitors to stand on for an elevated view across the top of the sunflowers.

A family arrives and is taking phone photographs of the sunflowers. Rachell and husband Erwin Magpantay have travelled with children Imogen and Oliver from the Liverpool area of Sydney specifically to see the sunflowers. Oliver has just woken up after being in the car and is snuggling into Dad’s neck.

“She just loves flowers,” Erwin says of wife Rachell.

“I’ve never seen them this big and up close,” Rachell says, looking up in awe at the towering flower heads.

By the end of day one about 100 people have visited.

As I drag myself away from the beguiling sunnies I joke with Bec, “How many photographs of sunflowers can I take?,” and she laughs recalling how she’s had to buy an additional memory card for her camera. “It’s therapeautic isn’t it?” She encourages me to come back to photograph the sunflowers at sunset later this week.

Before I leave Windy Station, I rejoin Clare on duty welcoming visitors at Windy Woolshed. Clare and husband David have managed Windy Station for four years. When they were being interviewed for the job, Clare could see the potential of the woolshed.

“I asked, ‘What happens with that shed?’ I love tourism, I love local and provenance.”

With the backing of the owners she’s been finding something to do with it.

As far as shearing sheds go, they don’t come much bigger than 44-stand Windy Woolshed. By comparison Clare says there are shearing sheds with more stands, but “In terms of its design it’s very unique and just the beauty of how it has stood up for 120 years. Very little has been done to the shed.”

The woolshed was designed by Fred B Menkens and built in 1901 by Thomas and William Cowan using timber cut from trees on the property. The Windy Station team is about to start a major conservation project on the woolshed working with a heritage architect and engineers to meet heritage requirements.

“All our plans went in three months ago. We have to do some minor tweaking on our ideas and then we can move forward on tenders and construction.”

At its peak the shed held more than 4,000 sheep and there would have been more than 100 people involved in shearing. There hasn’t been a commercial size sheep flock on Windy Station for 20 years, the property following a nation-wide shift from sheep and wool, to beef cattle and cropping.

“We still have 20 sheep to work our dogs with.”

Standing beside the wall of shearing stands stencilled with numbers, and surrounded by timber sheep pens polished by more than a century of lanolin, and original wicker baskets leaning from the weight of storing and sorting fleeces, it’s easy to imagine the bustle of activity in this building.

The high roof was a source of light and ventilation for the shearers, while two distinctive round windows in the pitch of the façade were designed to let owls in to control rodents.

Footage from the National Archives of Windy Woolshed in the 1940s brings the workplace alive, narrated by a long-gone BBC-esque English Australian accent. Clare has a soft spot for footage showing the wool classer walking around in his tie and hat.

She conjures a bustle of a different kind, describing restoration of large glass windows and timber shutters, plans for a commercial kitchen and introducing modern comforts like climate control and seating for up to 300 people for weddings and conferences. They’ve already hosted magazine and fashion shoots and training programs.

Windy Station has been part of a pilot program between the Office of Small Business, Liverpool Plains Shire Council and consultancy Regionality to put the call out to farmers and develop an agritourism plan. The Plains group evolved from that and the Liverpool Plains Sunflower Trail is its first event.

“We’re all building our own businesses; it’s a brand new committee and vision,” Clare says.

“We’re already planning events for sorghum, cotton and canola so people can come out and drive past or thorough paddocks and learn about their food and fibre.”

It’s a bright outlook and Clare gets a buzz out of the prospect of people visiting the region.

“That excites me personally, people can bring their creativity to the region, and our region can benefit.”

Connect with @theplains_au and @theplainsau and on Instagram and Facebook for event details at Windy Station, Little Willow Lavendar Farm, Wilgabah, Sandstone, and The Plantation.

During June storms that heralded some of the heaviest snow in years I was camped up on Barrington, squeezing in one last fish before the season closed. Some time in the wee small hours, iced kidneys and a sodden head heralded catastrophic swag failure. Abandoning ship I ended up under an old army blanket in the back of the Land Rover, wedged between the esky and cooking locker. With the rain and wind rattling the canvas canopy and sleep elusive, an epiphany was had. Why hadn’t I been in here in the first place?

With the opening of a new trout season, a couple of sheets of ply were cut to size and fixed through the holes that had once held the rear bench seats, forming a level false floor in the rear tub with storage underneath. The job took an hour, give or take six years of planning, and the next day I headed to a favoured stretch of Barrington trout stream. It was a job to get in, with fallen trees, collapsing bridges and road closures but we finally got through late in the afternoon.

It’s hard to believe the difference two bits of plywood can make. I slept the sleep of angels on a warm level surface, out of the wind, and at first light there was no need to even get out of the swag to brew coffee or cook porridge on the Trangia. Even the sometimes elusive Barrington trout felt the difference, taking flies with such enthusiasm I lost count of fish taken over eight hours of rock hopping.

On the last morning, drinking coffee, in bed, a light rain began to patter the canvas and the misery of that June storm began to fade to distant memory. DT