BLOG: White Enamel Pie Dish

Gathering memories for Heritage Festival

In preparation for a presentation I was giving for Tamworth Regional Heritage Festival, I interviewed the last McClelland to own our shop, Tony McClelland, aged 80. Tony’s earliest memory of the old store is when he was about eight, being with his grandfather Bill McClelland dressed for work in a suit. Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores was started by William McClelland and John Odgers in the 1890s, about 40 years after gold was discovered at Hanging Rock. The partnership exchanged gold for credit at the store to purchase goods. It was a general merchants selling all the basics that people needed. Goods like potatoes, sugar, salt, onions, dates, and flour were bought in bulk and repackaged in paper bags.

Welcoming our Rayburn wood stove to the family

Parsnip and curry soup with wholegrain bread

As the weekend approaches I start to contemplate what I will cook with a little extra time in the kitchen and hungry boys to feed. My starting point is often the collection of recipes I've torn or bookmarked from magazines and newspapers over three decades. That is how I came to cook Parsnip and curry soup, and Wholegrain bread. The Parsnip and curry soup is an old recipe I've never tried. The Wholegrain bread recipe is a favourite I go back to time and time again. I enjoy using a rattan bread proving basket for the second rise. The basket gives the dough a uniform shape and leaves a concentric circle imprint, which remains during cooking. The result is a rustic loaf, with a light dusting of flour, that looks like it could have come out of an artisan bakery. If I don't have honey in the house I have substituted treacle for a flavour alternative. I also experiment with flours, sometimes using Wholegrain Milling's stoneground organic spelt, rye, or lightly sifted unbleached flour.

Introduction to Biodynamics at Glenmore House

Sophie Hansen's 'A Basket by the Door' honours seasonal ingredients and comfort food

'A Tree in the House' Nundle book launch

This week we hosted the most beautiful gathering of women from north west NSW on our Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores verandah for the Nundle launch of 'A Tree in the House' by author, photographer and friend Annabelle Hickson. The beauty came from the patina of our 1891 building, Virginia Creeper covered verandah, and Fowlers preserving jars and enamel vessels, including jugs, mug, sugar bowl and Turkish coffee pot, filled with roses, dahlias, sedum, and wind flowers from the Tenterfield gardens of Annabelle, and Mandy Reid from White Cottage Flower Farm. We gathered every available table, chair, and bench at our shop and created spaces for conversations on our verandah, then spilled onto our neighbour Mark Delahunt's Jenkins Street Antiques and Fine China verandah, borrowing chairs from Jenkins Street Guest House. Beauty also radiated from the warmth and openness of the 40 women, who had travelled from Moree, Gunnedah, Scone, Tamworth and surrounds, and the supportive and inspiring atmosphere created by the possibility of imagination.

Burnt butter parsnip cake

Our boys are obsessed with asking if I've added vegetables to cakes ("Does this have vegetables in it?" they ask of any cake, regardless of appearance). So when I saw this recipe for Burnt butter parsnip cake by Helen Goh, I just had to make it so I could say, "Yes" when they asked. I made this cake on an incredibly hot day for a gathering of people who were an incredible support to us during a difficult 2018. It is worth making Burnt butter parsnip cake for the reaction (expect curious facial expressions) when you tell friends it's parsnip cake, but mostly for the delicious nutty texture and intriguing, delicate flavour layers from aniseed powder, and currants, to grated parsnip and white chocolate icing. It gives me great pleasure to share Helen Goh's recipe. I hope you enjoy making (and eating) it as the weather cools off. Meanwhile, my goal of making Burnt butter parsnip cake from homegrown parsnips wanes as grasshoppers devour seedlings emerging in continuing 35C days. It will be back to the grocer. 

Joining big conversations and Waste Warriors

Making beeswax wraps by Milkwood

The universe has been pushing me to make beeswax wraps. We have a bulk supply of beeswax from years ago when a friend had a honey business at Nundle, I've had two conversations giving me how-to tips from grating, to oils to mix with the beeswax, and when 'Milkwood, Real skills for down-to-earth living' arrived it had a instructions on 'Making Beeswax Wraps' (featured on their blog this week). I have been following the Milkwood blog for years and I was thrilled when Milkwood founders Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar announced they were writing a book. I love the chapter on Wild Food, being blackberry, apple, fig, mushroom and nettle foragers. 

Reversing climate change, reducing food waste