![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We Offer Loans
Mar. 10th, 2019 09:34 pmYesterday, some friends and I did a road trip round (some of the the) the 12 Apostles Food Artisans network. (It's called that because they're all near the Twelve Apostles rock formation, although fortunately inland, so we could travel on back roads without getting on the super-busy Great Ocean Road.)
We started at an organic dairy. I didn't buy anything there, but I tried, among other things, some salted caramel fudge (v. nice) and some chilli honey (vile). We did our tasting with another group of four people, including a lady in a bright yellow shirt. Back in the car we discussed the mystery of the chilli honey. The woman running the tasting experience was encouraging us to dig our tasting sticks in generously; not so with the chilli honey, which she warned us to only take a dab. And honestly, that was enough. There was a hint of sweetness and then my tongue went numb. So what would you do with it? You couldn't spread it on bread for a snack. Maybe use it in a stir fry, I suppose.
Next we went to a distillery for whisky tasting — and sparkling mineral water for the driver (me) — and a very nice lunch, sitting several tables over from our yellow-shirted friend. Artisanal whisky isn't really my thing, but I had fun in the attached provedore, getting some lemon butter and orange hot chocolate. Then we took a stroll around the corner to the gourmet ice cream shop. They offered tastings too, but I just made a choice: one scoop of honeycomb (something I'm guaranteed to like) and one scoop of orange and cardamon (which turned out to be delicious).
Back on the road, we stopped next at a cheese maker and did the full tasting experience: soft cheeses, including a brie that just last month won a gold medal as Australia's best white mould cheese; semi-hard cheese; blue cheese; and fresh fetta. I came away from there with some garlic harvarti and chilli-infused fetta. Then the tasting man took us to the counter round the corner and we each got to taste a spoonful of two of his gourmet gelato flavours. I picked salted caramel and coconut, and then I regretted my earlier ice cream, because otherwise I would have had a whole scoop of the coconut. When we walked into the cheese maker, yellow-shirt was there. She was trying the chilli fetta, and she waved the tasting stick at us, saying, "This is better than that chilli honey!" As they were leaving, her husband said, "Did you get lost? We've been going to the same places all day and I don't know how we got so far ahead of you." We explained our walk to the ice cream shop.
Our final stop was the artisanal chocolate maker, where we ran into yellow-shirt and co. on their way out. ("We thought we were finished, but we're going to the ice cream shop now," she said.) I came away from there with a bag of chocolate aniseed rings for my mother (a selfless gift because I don't like them so she will get to eat them all), a bag of dark chocolate frogs for me, and a hazelnut mouse to eat on the way home. So that was a good day out, and my only regret is that I didn't have any way to bring a tub of that coconut gelato back without it melting.
Back home, I had to get to work in the kitchen. My great-aunt Jinny is 98 this week and is having her annual party this weekend. It is the sort of casual affair where everyone brings a plate. When her daughter Sanny rang to issue the invitation, my mother asked what she wanted us to bring. "Well," said Sanny, "you know that pav you brought out at Christmas? Mum said that was the best pav she'd ever had." (And she's 98, so she's had a few pavs.) As it happened, I made the Christmas pav(lova) from a Donna Hay recipe, so I was tasked with recreating it for the birthday party. I finished it this morning and I was very pleased with it. It's topped with raspberries, strawberries (fresh from the market this morning), passionfruit pulp (from my colleague Michelle's vine) and powdered freeze-dried strawberries.
Tomorrow is a public holiday, and I should probably use it to eat sensibly after all the above.
We started at an organic dairy. I didn't buy anything there, but I tried, among other things, some salted caramel fudge (v. nice) and some chilli honey (vile). We did our tasting with another group of four people, including a lady in a bright yellow shirt. Back in the car we discussed the mystery of the chilli honey. The woman running the tasting experience was encouraging us to dig our tasting sticks in generously; not so with the chilli honey, which she warned us to only take a dab. And honestly, that was enough. There was a hint of sweetness and then my tongue went numb. So what would you do with it? You couldn't spread it on bread for a snack. Maybe use it in a stir fry, I suppose.
Next we went to a distillery for whisky tasting — and sparkling mineral water for the driver (me) — and a very nice lunch, sitting several tables over from our yellow-shirted friend. Artisanal whisky isn't really my thing, but I had fun in the attached provedore, getting some lemon butter and orange hot chocolate. Then we took a stroll around the corner to the gourmet ice cream shop. They offered tastings too, but I just made a choice: one scoop of honeycomb (something I'm guaranteed to like) and one scoop of orange and cardamon (which turned out to be delicious).
Back on the road, we stopped next at a cheese maker and did the full tasting experience: soft cheeses, including a brie that just last month won a gold medal as Australia's best white mould cheese; semi-hard cheese; blue cheese; and fresh fetta. I came away from there with some garlic harvarti and chilli-infused fetta. Then the tasting man took us to the counter round the corner and we each got to taste a spoonful of two of his gourmet gelato flavours. I picked salted caramel and coconut, and then I regretted my earlier ice cream, because otherwise I would have had a whole scoop of the coconut. When we walked into the cheese maker, yellow-shirt was there. She was trying the chilli fetta, and she waved the tasting stick at us, saying, "This is better than that chilli honey!" As they were leaving, her husband said, "Did you get lost? We've been going to the same places all day and I don't know how we got so far ahead of you." We explained our walk to the ice cream shop.
Our final stop was the artisanal chocolate maker, where we ran into yellow-shirt and co. on their way out. ("We thought we were finished, but we're going to the ice cream shop now," she said.) I came away from there with a bag of chocolate aniseed rings for my mother (a selfless gift because I don't like them so she will get to eat them all), a bag of dark chocolate frogs for me, and a hazelnut mouse to eat on the way home. So that was a good day out, and my only regret is that I didn't have any way to bring a tub of that coconut gelato back without it melting.
Back home, I had to get to work in the kitchen. My great-aunt Jinny is 98 this week and is having her annual party this weekend. It is the sort of casual affair where everyone brings a plate. When her daughter Sanny rang to issue the invitation, my mother asked what she wanted us to bring. "Well," said Sanny, "you know that pav you brought out at Christmas? Mum said that was the best pav she'd ever had." (And she's 98, so she's had a few pavs.) As it happened, I made the Christmas pav(lova) from a Donna Hay recipe, so I was tasked with recreating it for the birthday party. I finished it this morning and I was very pleased with it. It's topped with raspberries, strawberries (fresh from the market this morning), passionfruit pulp (from my colleague Michelle's vine) and powdered freeze-dried strawberries.
Tomorrow is a public holiday, and I should probably use it to eat sensibly after all the above.