The Gather Table

2

We sipped tea from china teacups. We laughed. We ate. We dropped crumbs. We shared. We remembered.

We went a little silent at times.

My sister, and I, and our three kids, sat around the old table, out on my verandah. The sun was shining, it was an early October afternoon. I’d spent the day baking our mum’s whole meal chocolate cake, a favourite from her handwritten recipe book. A cake that my sister was too young to remember, but one that I know she, her twin brother, our other brother, and I, used to love so much.

This October day was the day she died, 28 years ago.

We remembered the woman who raised us to raise ours. One of us shared stories about her. About how she cooked this whole meal chocolate cake every single week. About how our brother and I would race each other to try and be the first to run our finger around the edge of the freshly iced cake. We talked about how amazing it was that all of us, her children, and now some of her grandchildren, have become foodies. It’s our thing. She gave it to us. It was her thing, like a silver thread from her to us, and now to ours. She wove her love in and out, in and out, binding us together, a precious woven garment of family and connection, regardless of time or place. And she did it, mainly through the sharing of food with those she loved, gathered around a little old table.

3

This book is dedicated to the two most beautiful and influential women in my life: my mum, Thea, and my nan, Betty.

These women not only nurtured me and showed me love throughout my childhood, they taught me what it was to create food made from the heart, to be shared around a table where loved ones gather.

They showed me how to make a home sing with warmth and cosiness, scented with the aromas of freshly baked goodies, and they instilled in me the importance of a table full of comforting, nourishing food that would bring joy to everyone who feasted at it.

I also want to thank some lovely, lovely people.

My son, Lew for all of the gorgeous drawings smattered throughout this book. Not once did he complain when I asked him to draw me, yet another, quirky, homey piece. Which is a miracle in itself!

Each and every contributor: Lindsey, Felicity, Emily, Tammy, Josh, Nan, Maj, Leanne, Michelle and Pete.

And once again, my faithful editor and bestie, Lynda.

Thank you all so very much, 4

1. Nan and Mum when Mum was about 7.

Mum at 21, scoffing her face!

2. Mum and I and Silky when I was about 7.

3. Nan and I and Skip when I was a baby.

5

6

8 That Recipe Book 14 Orchard Days 28 Sleep Overs 36 My Nan 48 An English Childhood 56 Conversations With Josh 74 Mum’s Wholemeal Chocolate Cake 76 A Croquette Story 88 Pete’s Lamb Croquettes 94 Christmas’ On The Peninsula 104 Mum’s Caramel Oat Slice 106 Conversations With Tammy 120 Nan’s Apple Pie 126 Grown With Love 134 Oh, Dessert!

136 Thank you, Enid Blyton 154 Conversations With Nan

7

WORDS & PHOTOS BY KIM MAK

8

Whenever I grab my mum’s recipe book, down from the old kitchen cabinet, I am instantly taken back to my childhood. To the ‘80s. To my teens. To that little house at Brogo. To family meal times around our kauri pine table. To birthday parties and family feasts. To milos on the porch and an extra sneaky bickie from the tin.

I’m taken back to the afternoons after school, when I’d arrive home ravenous, to the smell of Mum’s baked goodies fresh out of the fuel stove. Back to that kitchen. That precious, simple little hub in our tiny cottage. The kitchen where my mum spent much of her time preparing food for us to enjoy. The very kitchen where I tried to cook gravy for the first time, with my dad’s very bad instructions (he, also, had never cooked gravy before) – lumpy and tasteless with only room for improvement. Where I would run my finger around the edge of a freshly iced chocolate cake before anyone noticed. Where I’d sneak to whenever I heard the roast being served, just so I could be the first to scrape that black, salty, sticky residue from the pan before anyone else could get their fingers on it. The kitchen where I’d sit, looking out to the green hills and Mumbulla Mountain ever so close, where I’d chat with Mum about my school day or some little horsey drama I’d had that afternoon.

9

It was in that very kitchen where I watched my mum write some of the recipes in that book. She’d sit, sipping tea, at the kitchen bench, the handwritten words flowing onto the page in her simple, neat, nonfancy way. I’d watch her plonk her cup of tea onto the pages, aghast at how she could possibly deface a recipe book in that way. I remember her cooking over the top of the book, cocoa dust spilling over onto the pages, as she mixed and stirred. Remnants of that cocoa remain to this day, and gosh, I’m ever so thankful that they do.

That childhood, around that table, in that kitchen, amongst the pages in that recipe book, hold some of my most vivid and loveliest life moments. The gathering of the people I love, around a table, to share a meal, is at the heart of what makes me tick. It’s the way I show love. It’s the way I’ve been shown how to love and how to give, how to nurture and nourish, and how to be in the moment. From it all, I have learnt how to connect through food.

And this book, the one you’re reading right now, my lovely reader, is an attempt to capture the essence of happy, connected childhood food memories and gatherings. My hope is that we can savour them, for just a little while, and allow ourselves to be transported back to a place or a person or a home where we have felt nurtured and loved by the art of cooking and sharing food together.

1 0

1 2

May these food and meal-gathering memories bring warmth, and cosiness to you, and your table, and kitchen, and may your own experiences with food be ones that create many lovely, long-lasting moments and connections with those you love.

1 3

WORDS & PHOTOS BY KIM MAK

1 4

It’s the summer of 1983. It’s hot. Stinking hot. I’ve just spent the past six hours in a classroom full of smelly boys and lunch boxes overflowing with vegemite sandwich crusts and already-fermenting mandarin peels. My head is light from the bus trip home. We all enjoyed the chatter between sniffing our homework stencils. It’s the very best part of the homework. By tomorrow the stencils won’t smell quite so good so it’s best we get as much sniffing done on the bus trip home, as possible.

Over the bridge, turn right, along the gravel road, through the gate. Home. Ahhhh, the relief home brings to this 11-year-old girl, busting to break free into the late afternoon.

Thud. The familiar sound of my brother’s school bag hitting the floor of his bedroom. I place mine neatly under my bed. It’s our usual routine and it means that I am ready, more than ready, to head off, down to the solace of the place that would feed my rumbling, starving-after-school tummy.

1 5

The orchard, with its drooping, old branches filled with plump summer fruits, isn’t too far to walk on this hot afternoon. It’s shady and the grass, to touch, feels almost cool, from the sheltering, 100-year-old canopy.

I begin my gorging session with the biggest, juiciest peach I can find. They always need the squish test so I push my fingers gently into the yellowing skin, making sure I pick the perfect one to begin my afternoon feast. I find a soft spot to sit, under the mulberry, my favourite spot. I think it’s the oldest of the trees, or maybe it just grows the biggest? My 11-year-old mind isn’t quite horticulturally wise and I’m fine with that.

It doesn’t take long before the juice starts to ooze. It dribbles down my chin and hands, all the way to my elbows. I’m not completely comfortable with the sticky peach juice on my skin but the taste of that golden fruit and the thankfulness that my tummy feels as it begins to fill up on this delicious thing, makes it all worthwhile. I wipe my arms and mouth all over my clothes, mum won’t mind. Dad might, but it’s too late now.

The peach seed is rough and sharp and I’m careful to suck the remaining flesh off without cutting my mouth, this time. I’m still recovering from yesterday’s peach seed mishap. Once it’s all dry and fleshless I throw the seed as far as I can, over the orchard fence, and down into the gully. Those seeds are painful to tread on.

1 9

2 0

2 1

I quickly begin to think about what will come next. My eyes flitter all around as I decide which piece of fruit to grab.

An apricot. No, two. Two apricots. After the messy, juicy peach I look for something a little easier.

Apricots are perfect. They are juicy but kind of dry too so nothing drips anywhere. An easier feast after the mess of a peach.

The seed is smooth and I have no fear for my mouth.

The flesh comes away from the seed so easily and I relish the relaxing apricot indulgence. I sit and wonder why shop bought apricots are even called apricots.

They are nothing like the ones picked fresh from our tree. These ones are soft and dark in colour, not at all like the hard, yellow tokens that the grocery store tries to sell us. I s’pose those ones are from Sydney, what else would you expect. That’s what Dad says, anyway.

A peach and two apricots are definitely not enough.

Not when there’s an endless supply of fruity baubles of purple and orange and yellow covering the branches hanging above my head.

The smell is hard to describe in words. It’s sweet and strong and there’s a slightly fermented waft but it’s not unappealing, quite the opposite.

2 2

1

I hardly need to move to get the next piece of fruit.

Just a slight-not-at-all-strenuous reach. This time it’s a couple of deep purple, blood plums. This stuff stains so I’m careful to eat them with my arms outstretched.

The skin is warm from the days’ hot sun and the juice is dark and plentiful. It’s warm too. Comforting.

Familiar.

This is how it usually goes – peach, then apricots then plums. But I can’t stop at two plums even though I know my tummy may not appreciate it later on. I reach for the yellow ones next. They are small and not so juicy but they are the sweetest of all the fruits in the orchard. I pop two at a time into my mouth, carefully trying to decipher plum flesh from seed. Another few go in. It’s too hard for me to resist.

I burp, as usual. The Italians do it after their meal.

It’s a good burp. A thankful one. It is at this moment that I realise I am full and I can leave the orchard, for now. Tomorrow I’ll be back. And the next day. And the next. I’ve got to beat the birds. It’s a race, one that I plan on winning.

2 5

I pass my brother on the way out of the orchard gate.

He has that sheepish grin on his face, the one that lets me know he’s about to start pegging small, unripe plums at me. I run, struggling with my bloated, satisfied tummy. I yell back at him, begging him not to waste the fruit and I manage to escape his feeble attempt at plum branding me. I use the last of my energy to flop on top of the trampoline.

As I gaze up at the clouds, trying to make out the zoo of animal shapes, I have no idea, that in the years to come, I will be creating my own little piece of edible heaven, for my own 11-year-old child. He too, will gorge himself silly and flop on the trampoline for some much needed digestion time.

2 6

2 7

WORDS & PHOTOS BY MAJ

2 8

I’ve never been a cereal kinda gal. If you mention oats of any kind though I’m totally in, like face first kinda in! And this Baked Apple and Blueberry Oat recipe basically joins organic apples, blueberries, creamy coconut, almond milk and oats in a blessed union of complete and utter happiness. Which pretty much sums up my childhood memories every time I ate at my nan’s house. See, that’s where my love of cooking started.

My most favouritest memories are of sleeping over at her house, sitting in her kitchen, in my nightie, and watching her whip up some magical delight for my siblings and I. As I got older I was given more responsibilities such as roaming amongst the abundant fruit trees in her back garden to find the most perfect peach, apricot or lemon for her to use in some kind of marvellous baked deliciousness.

Of course, searching the branches, was no easy task.

One had to look at its rich, deep colourings, a gentle squeeze for ripeness and of course an official taste test with the typical fruit drip-down-the-chin all part of the process.

2 9

And now that I’m a mama bear I get to bring those special moments forward by sharing them with my own little people. Sadly, we don’t have a garden full of abundant fruit trees. Instead we go to the farmers market every Saturday morning, where we carefully select beautiful organic produce and talk about what we will make with our basket full of goodlyness.

This recipe is an ode to those memories…new and old…and of course my Nan, and the moments I now share with my littles.

Early mornings waking up to the smell of baked blueberry oats has now become a welcome morning tradition in our house. Cold mornings not required but definitely a welcome addition! Of course, being the mum to little people, I know all about living off very little sleep. So this recipe is all about easy, slow mornings and it can be prepped the night before so all you need to do is wake up and simply pop it in the oven and enjoy a morning cuppa while the delightful smells fill the house. Serve it warm with a good dollop of your favourite yoghurt and of course extra raspberries and give your belly a morning full of goodness.

3 1

Apple, Blueberry & Coconut Baked Oats 2 2/3 cups oats 1/2 cup blueberries (be generous) 4 cups almond & coconut milk 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp vanilla essence 1/4 tsp salt 2 tbsp melted butter/margarine 2 cups apples, diced or canned will work too!

1/4 desiccated coconut 1. Heat oven to 170c. Place all ingredients apart from coconut into a large casserole dish and mix to combine.

Sprinkle coconut over the oat mixture.

2. Bake for 40 mins uncovered or until most of the liquid is gone and its golden on top. Serve with extra milk or my favourite, good dollop of yoghurt.

All the warm and fuzzies, Maj x

3 2

~ Maj is a baker and food lover. Her website Those We Fancy is a showcase for the gorgeous cakes she bakes for special ocassions and celebrations.

Maj is also a homey type. She can be found over on instagram, faffing about the place, making her home look absolutely gorgeous.

3 5

BY KIM MAK

3 6

I’ve just got off the phone from my nan. It’s getting close to Christmas, about a week to go, and as usual, at this time of year, Nan asks if I’ve made my pudding yet. I haven’t. I want to. I really do, but I’ve been so busy this December that I just haven’t got around to it and I’m secretly worried that I won’t. Is this a gen X thing?

“I’ve made shortbread,” I exclaimed, trying to redeem my lack of Christmas baking.

“How about you, Nan, what have you been up to?”

She rattles off all the things that she’s cooked. Her puddings are all done and right before I rang she had just popped two cherry and walnut cakes into the oven. She had also baked for three local businesses: the butcher, the stock feed place and the bank, and she’s already delivered their gifts.

I think I should add here, that my nan is 86 years old, lives in her own home with my grandpa who is 88. She has a broken femur and a chronic infection in the same leg, from a botched up knee replacement surgery. She now needs to use a walking frame and cannot straighten her injured leg. She is on continual antibiotics to keep her infected leg from becoming ‘too bad’. She cooks, cleans, gardens and instructs dog training every Sunday down at her local showgrounds.

She knits, sews and quilts. We are talking about one strong, amazing woman.

3 7

All of my life Nan has created food for people. Food is her way of showing that she cares. It’s her way of saying thank you and showing love and gratefulness.

Every Christmas for my entire childhood, and well into my adult years, Nan made every family group (all 11 of them) a Christmas pudding. The kind of pudding you boil for hours upon hours inside calico cloth, tied up with white butchers string. She’d lovingly make each one, soak them in rum, wrap them in brown paper, and post them in the mail so that they would always arrive in plenty of time for Christmas.

On the Christmas’ that we would spend with her and Grandpa, there would be chaos in preparation for Christmas lunch. When I say chaos, I really and truly mean chaos. The kitchen would look like a bomb had hit it – flour, crumbs, fruit peelings, golden syrup, grated carrot and whatever other ingredients we were using, covered the bench tops and some of the floor.

The washing up piled high. No dishwasher, just soapy warm, OK, boiling hot water, and two hands. There were always willing helpers and Nan would be happily giving instructions to every one of us – make sure you chop it this way, Grandpa likes his finely cut, it needs more mayo, a bit more flour in there, use a sharper knife.

3 9

That brings me to the knife. Nan has always used a bone-handled butter knife for cutting tomatoes and peeling unwashed potatoes. A butter knife? Yes, a butter knife. You see, my grandpa was a butcher and the king of keeping knives sharp. Razor sharp.

For some reason, my nan just loved using her bone handled knives for cutting and so Grandpa would regularly sharpen them. The blade on the knife, over the years, became so thin and pointed and bowed that one day it broke. It took about 50 years, but it finally could no longer be sharpened. So, a new bone handled knife was chosen to be ‘the knife’. It too was a very old knife, most definitely as old as the previous one, but because it had only ever been used for what it was made for, bread and butter, it was in good, ready to be used, working condition. I am always scared of these knives.

Back to our Christmas’.

It was a frenzy before the feast, but oh, what a feast it always was. Cold meats, mostly. Ham, chicken, pork (though sometimes the pork was served hot), traditional salads like coleslaw and potato salad and an iceberg lettuce-cucumber-tomatoes-cut-in-wedgesdrizzled-with-french-dressing salad.

4 0

1

There were always two types of potato salad. Grandpa’s, which was just potato in vinegar and mint, and ours, the creamy, mayo-slathered-chives-sprinkled version.

Sometimes there were roast potatoes and gravy when the pork was hot. There was always apple sauce and mint sauce and a gazillion other bottled sauces all lined up on the table or bench.

Dessert was pudding and Christmas cake and an assortment of whatever Christmas baking Nan had done earlier in the week. Sometimes there would be a pavlova. Whipped cream, custard and ice cream, of course, adorned the sweet things. We always stuffed ourselves silly and Grandpa would end up needing an early afternoon nap in preparation for scotch and ginger ale time at around 4pm.

There were no matching plates or fanciness on the table for celebration times at Nan’s. Just lots and lots of home cooked, old fashioned good food, and plenty of it. Oh, and always, always a big, steaming hot, and strongly brewed, pot of tea, right in the centre of the table. I do remember enjoying the moment when I’d pick which plate I was going to eat off. I usually chose a vintagey one, especially if it happened to have roses on it. There were always plates in the pile from different stages of my childhood. How they never broke, I do not know, but thinking about them now, makes me smile.

All retro, of course, but not precious or particularly old. Just well-used dinner plates with no particular colour scheme or pattern or link to anything else on the table.

4 3

That was Christmas.

To be honest, most meal times at Nan’s were full of food, feasting and frenzy. Usually, there would be more than one family staying so there were always plenty of people that needed feeding and cleaning up after.

My favourite Nan meal is still her roast lamb. She makes the yummiest lamb roast ever. The potatoes are crunchy and dark and caramelised on the outside but fluffy white once you cut them open. There are always parsnips and sweet potato and pumpkin and carrots done in a roasting pan, cooked with lard from the lamb she’d used a few nights before. The peas are usually minted, just the way Grandpa likes them, and the gravy is the deepest of brown, silky smooth and salty. I like to drown my entire plate full of food in that gravy. And, when no one is looking, I will speedily run my finger around the plate to get every last drop.

That’s our little secret, OK? When I think of my Nan I think of lamingtons, apple pies and Christmas puddings, of lamb roasts and creamy mashed potato, of brightly coloured peas and carrots (what is it that she puts in those? It’s something, I’m sure of it. bi-carb?), of chocolate cakes and fruit cakes, lemon slice and sugar biscuits and, red cordial.

We were never allowed red cordial at home, and so at Nan’s, we would sneak as many glasses of red cordial as we could possibly manage.

4 4

~ “I’ve got to go, darling. I can smell the cherry and walnut cakes,” Nan pipes up.

“No worries, Nan. I’ll ring you on the weekend for that interview, OK?” I hang up the phone. I feel better. I didn’t feel bad before, but after speaking to my nan and hearing her talk, I feel lifted somehow and the thought of those cherry and walnut cakes all steamy and wafting through her kitchen makes me feel a mix of both nostalgic sadness and utter joy.

I’m looking forward to interviewing her about food and cooking. She is the hub of my own food and cooking story and she’s the reason I am sitting here writing this book, after all.

Oh, and just in case you’ve been wondering this whole time, I did get to make my Christmas pudding.

I even remembered to put the threepences inside. The threepences that Nan gave me a couple of years ago.

The same threepences Nan used in the puddings she made for us. She gave me five. I added five but only three threepences made it. Don’t even ask. I have no clue. But I’m wondering whether this tradition really should be continued.

4 7

WORDS & PHOTOS BY LINDSEY DICKSON

4 8

It is a cold, dark, drizzly Thursday morning. I have just put a pan of stock on the stove and am sitting cradling a hot cup of tea looking out of the steamy kitchen window at my two straggly, wet hens who have wandered down to the house in the hope of getting some bread scraps left over from breakfast.

My mind is wandering as I have been thinking about what to write for this piece for a few days now. I have so many vivid childhood memories of food that it really is difficult to pick one that means more than the rest.

Most of my very precious memories revolve around my mum who is now in the later stages of dementia and has been unable to cook for the last ten long years.

To watch someone who at one time could quickly debone a chicken change into someone who can not butter a slice of bread has been difficult for everyone who knows her, but I feel blessed to have so many unbreakable connections with her through the food she cooked and shared with her family and friends.

4 9

5 0

I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where food was more than something than just fuel to get us through the day. Every afternoon I returned home from school I was greeted by the smell of a freshly baked cake or pudding, nothing fancy, usually an oldfashioned staple like bread pudding or apple pie, or a pile of eccles or rock cakes, sitting cooling on a rack on the wooden worktop, urging me to see if I could pilfer one without being noticed.

At this time of the year, our English winter, there would always have been some type of stew slowly simmering in the oven or soup bubbling away on the stove, ready to be eaten at 6.00pm every evening when my dad returned home from work, tired and weary, his hands and fingers crazed with deep cracks from laying bricks in the bitterly cold air. The thick, comforting stew would always be topped with a huddle of suet dumplings which would be shared out between us, our cares of the day seemingly being carried away in the steam rising out from the well-used pan.

5 1

Forty plus years forward and now in my own kitchen far away from where I was brought up, I am still watching the hens out of the window.

They have now given up waiting for scraps and are scratching purposefully in the garden. On my stove I have a big pot of lamb bones and vegetables, being cooked to make a stock for a hearty Scotch Broth later on this evening.

The smell is beginning to waft lazily around the room and I am suddenly transported back to my parents’ kitchen, the one with the brown hessian on the walls, the sound of the radio on, my dad telling unfunny jokes and my mum busily putting dinner on the table. I will think about her later on when I am tucking in, and probably wonder, when my son grows up and is cooking for his family, will he be putting pearl barley in his lamb stew as my mum did. I do hope so.

5 2

~ Lindsey Dickson is a food and lifestyle stylist. She is also a talented instagram photographer and cook.

Lindsey has a passion for food, cooking, gardening and taking gorgeous photos. She runs workshops in England for instagram photography and food styling.

5 5

5 6

Where did your love of food and cooking come from?

From home: from Mum and Nan. Every time we went to Nan’s we’d have lamingtons and apple pies and mum didn’t cook those two particular things. I loved that.

I also developed a love of food through the community that we lived in.

What do you mean by ‘the community’?

Mainly the people that we knew and grew up with in Brogo. Remember how my friends and I used to go for lots of walks out there?

Yep, I do. You were 8 years old and wandering around the countryside, you and the three Kelly boys.

Well, we’d stop at peoples places and they would always give us something to eat. I remember going to Snow and Lindy’s place and they would have lentil hotdogs. We’d go there around lunch time and Lindy would be making them and we’d really look forward to them. We’d plan to end up there at about the right time.

5 7

You were like the Brogo version of street urchins! I didn’t know that you did that.

I didn’t like lentils but I liked those hotdogs.

Jack and Debbie, Kay and Eddy, they’d all have food for us. The rotolactor, remember Norma Lucas?

Yes. My first employer, Dave’s mum. Such a lovely woman.

Yep, she was! Well, Norma would give us free milkshakes and scones with jam and cream.

They were so good, weren’t they?

Who was the most influential person in your life when it came to food and cooking when you were young?

Mum. You too. You were really into cooking and we’d cook together, side by side and talk about food a lot.

Mum was somebody who I could count on to always have fresh bickies in tins and cakes straight from the oven when we came home from school.

The Ellards. Jay, mainly. The meals Jay cooked always inspired me. I remember once when Jay and Jan had some people visiting. They were part of the filming crew of some famous movie and they were all cooking together. The food was beautiful, mainly all seafood.

It was cool that I happened to be there at the time.

5 9

Yeh, I remember staying the night there once, with you, when Mum was in hospital, and Jay made us gourmet prawn and salad sandwiches for our school lunch. They were delicious and I felt so decandant hoeing into such a fancy sandwich in the middle of the school playground. I always think about it too and I thank God we didn’t die from food poisoning.

No ice packs back then!

Yeh, you would,you stress head!

What do you love about cooking?

I just love food and eating so much and I reckon learning how to cook is a good start in life. Nowadays, I cook because I have to. I go to work, come home and cook so I don’t’ die of starvation. I don’t cook for fun these days.

What’s your take on how we celebrated special occasions with food when we were growing up?

A few weeks before our birthday we’d get the Womens Weekly Birthday Cake book out and we’d go through the cakes we liked.

Yeh! Remember we’d play that game, you’re the left page, I’m the right, and we’d turn the pages and slap our side with a disappointed whine or an excited yes!

6 0

No, I don’t remember that.

We did it all the time. We did it with those nature books as well. Neither of us wanted to land on the mandrill! Remember!

Ummm….nup.

Anywaaaaay… then we’d choose between two or three cakes that we liked and finally the week before our birthday we’d have to make the final decision. Mum would need to go into town to get all of the stuff for it.

She never had a lot of food colourings or crappy things like that in the cupboard so it would be a special trip to town. I had the racing car, the tip truck, the train.

They were the ones I remember really well.

I remember the swimming pool. Who had that?

I made that for the twins when they were three or four.

Oh yeh, that’s right. Most Christmas’ I remember, especially in our later years, were at Nan’s. Earlier years we’d have them at The Pinch with family, in between the mandarin and orange tree and grapes.

There were summer foods – salads and cold meats. I don’t remember having hot food at Christmas.

What are some other memories you have around food?

6 3

I can always remember, you remember, the boiled chocolate cake Mum used to make?

Yep. (see chocolate cake photos!)

Well, I loved watching the butter melting in the saucepan. I loved the look of the golden butter, mixing and swirling into the brown cocoa. That memory is really strong in my mind.

Do you remember the icing after mum would drizzle it over the top of the cake and it would ooze over the sides and onto the base of the plate and by the time it hit the bottom the icing would harden and form a kind of skin?

And I would try and beat you to it and I usually did!

Running our fingers along the edge and feeling the hardened icing. That was so good.

Mum hated us doing that.

6 4

6 5

I used to get so annoyed when we’d come home from school to just rock cakes.

Haha, Me too!

What are some lovely cooking moments that you’ve had over the years?

When we were in Armidale, living with you, I was 18, and I made an apple pie. I’d made heaps of pies before then but I remember this one time and Renee was there and she took photos of it. When she got them developed she told her parents how much of a good cook I was.

I don’t remember you making apple pies there.

Well, I did.

Remember when mum got us both to cook a dish each, one that we wanted to make? We were having people coming over for dinner and mum got us to do the cooking. I chose a chilli chicken out of the Chinese Womens Weekly cook book. Remember that one. It had a red cover?

I do now, but I hadn’t thought about it since our childhood.

It was so good and everyone asked if mum made it because they were so impressed and mum proudly told them it was me that cooked it.

I’m kind of remembering that night now.

6 7

But I think mainly I love it when we get together, which isn’t that often, and there’s always some sort of feast involved. It’s always good homemade stuff.

Favourite meal as a kid?

I used to love it when Mum made eggs for breakfast on Saturday or Sunday mornings. They were the eggs from our chooks and they were so fresh. I loved the taste of those eggs. Those fresh, free range eggs would just explode in your mouth, every mouthful. I’d put BBQ sauce on mine.

A good way to wreck a good egg. You always liked BBQ sauce.

It’s a simple meal, I know, but it was delicious. I loved marinated chicken and rice and crumbed cutlets and cheesy puffs. Mum wouldn’t put the onion or spinach in mine cause I wouldn’t eat that.

You were a fuss pot when you were little. I’d always find your peas and carrots all shriveled up behind the lounge. You’d pick every single piece of onion out of everything. Remember you couldn’t eat tomato unless it was sliced paper thin? And I always had to have the broken chocolate chokitos or a Darrel Lea Chocolate log because you wouldn’t eat them broken. And you’d make mum cut your toast a certain way and if she did it the wrong way you wouldn’t eat it. Far out, Mum was patient!

6 8

I was a bit of a brat.

Hmmm...no comment. What’s your favourite thing to cook now?

Scotch fillet with mushrooms, sweet potato (garlic and rosemary and fry it and then roast it with butter) and garden salad. We have that a fair bit.

What was your favourite thing to cook when your kids were young?

They used to love me doing these garlic buns. I’d buy fresh rolls from the bakery, pull the centre out, and stuff them with cheese, butter and garlic. Then I’d wrap them in foil and bake them just like you do with garlic bread. They’d open them up and the butter would ooze out and they’d mop it all up with the bread.

Yum! I want some!

They loved marinated chicken wings too.

How often do you cook now?

To be honest I’m over cooking at the moment. There’s only the two of us mostly, these days, and I just can’t be bothered after work.

7 1

My brother, Josh and I keep chatting. We end up having a two-hour conversation where I continually butted in, as usual. I was on a high after our conversation. Going down memory lane with him is always something I love to do. I enjoy our shared memories and I really love it when we trigger memories for one another. Often I’ll mention something to Josh, something that’s really strong in my mind, and he’ll say he doesn’t remember but then, as we talk about it, it starts to hit him and his memories come back. He does the same for me.

The warmth and joy and connection that these sorts of food converations brings me is hard to explain in words. It’s strong and it’s precious and I am so, so thankful to have such precious memories, especially of the people who are no longer here with us.

7

2

7 3

Mum’s Wholemeal Chocolate Cake 100 grams butter 1/4 tsp bi carb 3/4 cup black sugar 3 tabls cocoa 3/4 cup cold water 1 1/2 cups whole meal flour 3 tsp baking powder 1/2 cup milk 2 eggs Gently heat butter, bi-carb, sugar and cocoa in a saucepan.

Remove from heat. Add water. Then remaining ingredients.

Cook in a 180 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.

When the cake is cool, drizzle with icing made from icing sugar, cocoa, a tablespoon of butter (melted) and enough water to create a drizzly chocolate icing.

Make sure to run your finger around the edge of the cake to maintain a uniform look. Just kidding! Not!

7 4

WORDS & PHOTOS BY KIM MAK

7 6

My husband, Pete, is a great cook. When we first met and were going through that lovely ‘getting to know you phase, Pete would share with me some of his lovely childhood memories. One of them was when he would make croquettes, with his grandparents, out in ‘the old shed’,. It quickly became obvious in our conversations, that these times spent with his grandparents were some of his most treasured childhood memories.

After talking about these lovely food making memories Pete couldn’t get croquettes out of his mind, and he became quietly determined to make them again, just like he and his Opa had, all those years ago.

Not long after our croquette conversations, Pete got to talking with his mum about it all. He wanted the recipe and any hints his mum could offer him about the process. He also shared with her his desire to get hold of an old hand mincer, just like Opa had. Pete’s mum then told him that she actually still had Opa’s old mincer and that if Pete would like it, she’d give it to him. Love! Right there!

Of course, Pete was over the moon with becoming the custodian of Opa’s old mincer. He showed me, with excitement, the places where the cast iron had broken over the many years of use. The brazing scars, visible on the metal, where Pete’s Opa had put his precious mincer back together again, adding to the character and beauty of that simple piece of equipment.

7 7

You may have already gathered that Pete’s family are Dutch. Both his parents were born in Holland and came out to Australia with their families in the ‘50s.

Pete’s mum was a teenager at the time and his Dad was nine. This croquette story is taken from the memories Pete has of his mum’s parents, Moes and Opa Visser, and the life they set up for their family in Dandenong, Melbourne.

Pete spent many childhood days hanging out with his grandparents, Moes and Opa. When her first grandchild was born, Moes chose the name for which her grandkids would refer to her. She disliked the traditional Dutch name for Grandmother (Oma) because it seemed ‘old’ to her. So, she chose Moes which means ‘beauty spot’ or ‘mummy’. And so the name, Moes, stuck.

Pete’s mum, Yvonne, was a single, working mum of two young children during the ‘70s and ‘80s. She would often work during the afternoons when the kids came home from school and so Pete would spend a lot of his spare time at his grandparents home.

7 9

Croquettes were a special part of those times. Pete would often help Moes and Opa make croquettes in their old shed out the back of the boarding house, which they ran, in those days. They had a basic kitchen set up inside the shed where a lot of the boarding house cooking took place.

While Pete and Opa were out in the shed, making croquettes, Opa would seize the opportunity to teach his grandson some Dutch. They were usually words that Pete would never remember, and so, to this day, he still knows very little Dutch, but the memories of trying to learn it are strong and cosy and filled with his Opa and the smell of lamb boiling on the stove top.

Pete remembers large aluminium cooking pots and bone handled knives and forks stacked inside the shed kitchen. He remembers starched white aprons. He remembers a croquette production line, set up along the big old timber bench. First the rolling, then the flour dipping, then the egg wash, then the crumbs, then the fridge. Everyone had a role to play when it came time to make croquettes.

The croquettes were usually made for special times when the family would gather together. There was always a big plate of golden brown croquettes sitting 8 0

on the Christmas dinner table, ready to be devoured.

And alongside them, a jar of mustard.

As a little child, Pete would sit on the sidelines and watch his grandparents, at the kitchen bench, making croquettes. He was fascinated by the process and so, as he got older, he eventually joined them in the creating. The three of them, Pete, Opa, and Moes, each dressed in a white apron, would stand around the kitchen bench, whiling away their time together, mixing, moulding, crumbing, bonding and creating beautiful childhood memories. Memories that Pete would cherish for his entire lifetime.

The croquette making was an all day thing. The meat would be put on to cook for a few hours in the morning. While it simmered on the stove top, Moes and Pete would spend their time in the garden. Moes would have Pete do all of the outdoor jobs that Opa could no longer do. Since his battle with cancer, Opa had become weaker than usual and unable to sustain the same amount of energy, so Pete would lovingly get those jobs done for him, and for Moes.

When he would arrive at his grandparent’s place, Pete would be dressed in his ‘good’ clothes. Yvonne always insisted that he wear his good clothes to his grandparent’s place but as soon as they were ready for

8 3

work, Moes would get out Opa’s old gardening clothes and give them to Pete to change into so that he wouldn’t get his good clothes dirty.

The day would continue with odd jobs in between each croquette process and it would end with the devouring of the croquettes that evening. This was always a lovely reward at the end of a hard day’s work.

The first time Pete made these croquettes for me was also the first time he’d cooked them without his Opa by his side. We decided to share our little feast with Pete’s mum, and so we sat and ate them around the old table in Pete’s shed, the very table that had once belonged to Moes and Opa. As mum and son reminisced about Pete’s grandparents, and the old mincer, and the lovely times they shared making croquettes, I sat quietly, soaking it all in.

Now, I’ve become a part of the croquette experience.

I’ve become connected to two important people in Pete’s life, one of whom I never had the privilege of meeting. I get to envisage Pete’s life as a boy, connecting with his grandparents through food. So too do our children, Pete’s two and my son. They get to hear the stories of the days when Pete was their age and younger, making croquettes with his grandparents.

Mincing cooked meat with big, gentle hands. Adding 8 4

paprika, chopping fresh herbs from the garden.

Creating a feast for everyone to enjoy.

These days, croquette making has become a fairly common occurrence in our home. I love spending time with Pete while he makes them. He allows his mind to wander off into the past and talk about the days that he and his Opa spent cooking and mincing up lamb necks for the croquette meat. Just recently, while he had his hand near the mincer, he noticed, with some surprise, how much his hands resembled his Opa’s. Pete shared that Opa had large hands, even though he was quite a small statured man, and he has vivid memories of Opa’s hands working that very same mincer.

It seems like such a small thing, doesn’t it? To make a meal with a grandparent. But, oh, how longlasting that can be. This cooking experience is the strongest memory Pete has of connecting him with his grandparents, and in particular his Opa, and that is the very reason why I love sharing a meal around the table and why food, for me, so beautifully connects us with the past and with the ones we love. These moments are to be savoured, treasured, and remembered, forever.

8 6

Pete’s Lamb Croquettes 1 lamb neck 1 beef Oxo stock cube 5 tablespoons of herbs 1/4 cup plain flour pinch of paprika water to simmer lamb neck 1/4 tsp salt pepper breadcrumbs eggs for crumbing milk for crumbing butter for the roux So, here we go with the croquette making process.

It’s quite a process that’s for sure and I can totally see why these were only made for special times.

The first thing to get hold of is some meat. It doesn’t actually matter what sort of meat you use for croquettes, it could be chicken or pork or beef but for our croquettes, Pete chose to use lamb that he had raised himself. He especially chose to use the neck because that’s just what his Opa used. During the depression times, meat was scarce and nothing was wasted, everything on the slaughtered animal would have been used. The neck tends to be a tough old piece which people often discard, but if slow cooked it becomes lovely tender meat with awesome flavour.

8 9

As Pete’s Opa would’ve realised, and as I found out during this process, there is actually quite a lot of meat on the neck, and so it’s perfect for croquettes. Yes, it’s a bit of a process, but well worth it.

Next, you need to grab a large saucepan and simmer the neck for hours until it’s tender and falls off the bone. Once the meat is cooked you then need to let it cool and pop it in the fridge overnight for the fat to separate, and become lard. The lard is then scraped off and used for another purpose if you’d like to. The liquid from the meat is kept for a bit later on in the process.

Once the neck is cooled scrape the meat from the bone ready for mincing. Chunks of the meat are then put through the mincer and minced.

Once the meat is all minced up, it needs to be pepped up with herbs from the garden – nothing specific, just whatever you have in the garden at the time. We use oregano, parsley, thyme and chives. Then we add some paprika.

Next, you make a roux out of the leftover liquid from the meat, a beef Oxo stock cube (Pete’s strict on things being done exactly as he’s been told. I’m not so much like that!) plain flour and butter. Once it’s a nice pasty consistency, add the meat mixture. Let it cool enough so that you will be able to roll it with your hands.

9 0

9 2

Form the meat mix into neat loggy shapes. About 10 cm long and 3 cm thick. Pete is extremely diligent with the uniformity of the croquettes. It must be done that way because that’s the way his Opa did it. I’m a little more rustic and open in my approach and uniformity isn’t my thing. This is where a few little heated words may just come out in our conversations and Pete is usually then happy to let my help go and do all of the rolling himself. I am always relieved to have him take over.

Next, coat the little logs with flour, egg and breadcrumbs. To make a really yummy, crunchy croquette, Pete double coats them back into the egg and crumbs. So, in other words, he coats them twice.

Last but not least, deep fry the croquettes until they are golden and crunchy on the outside.

The final, and best part of this whole process, is the eating. Of course! Add some mild American mustard and then hoe in! They are so yummy – crunchy, and golden on the outside, but soft, and melty on the inside.

Since we have been making these croquettes, or should I say, since Pete has been making these croquettes, on a regular-ish basis, I have added my own little thing to them. Along with mustard, I like to add sea salt and lime juice, just like you would with fish and chips. It’s really good, I promise you.

9 3

BY FELICITY SHAPARDON

9 4

My family moved to Rye, on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria when I was about two years old. My maternal grandparents had a holiday house in Blairgowrie and would regularly travel down from Preston to spend time on the coast, and often with other family members.

Christmas’ would be spent there and we would share meals together, playing cricket, frolicking at the beach and sleeping, after large meals, in the sunroom.

Eventually the holiday house became a full-time residence and so my mum and dad, with two small children in tow, followed suit to be closer to Nan and Pa. Despite always wanting to move to the country, I continued to live at the Mornington Peninsula and in 2013 I married my best friend, Ben, after meeting through a mutual friend. Life hasn’t been the same since.

We brought our first home together, on the Peninsula – an old weatherboard beach house with a giant liquid amber tree in the front yard. Both the tree and the weatherboards were things I had dreamed of for my home, which we affectionately call, ‘The Nest’.

9 5

Slowly we have been injecting life back into the house and with the installation of a garden, full of beeattracting flowers and shrubs, has seen the arrival of many creatures great and small. With great love, the house has slowly been transformed.

Initially, when looking for a house to buy, we had a list of non-negotiables. One of mine was a large kitchen which would be the heart of our home. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. The existing one was actually not even useable so the first thing we renovated, once we became the owners, was, of course, the kitchen. We now have a fully functional galley style kitchen which was designed to make the best use of the space that we had available.

It occurred to me, while writing the above paragraph, that my late paternal grandmother, Bonnie (the very person responsible for my inspiration for cooking) did not have a large kitchen, in fact, it was not much bigger than the one in our Nest, yet she was capable of producing large scale magic, especially on Christmas day.

On Christmas day, while I was growing up, Dad, my brother Jason, and my maternal grandmother, Betty, would leave early in the morning for the drive to Ringwood to join my uncles, aunts and cousins for lunch, which was prepared solely by my nana, Bonnie.

Chicken and turkey were prepared from scratch and 9 6

in abundance. There was always a fresh leg of ham, roasted pumpkin, potatoes and peas cooked al dente.

Nana would make apple sauce and gravy among other things, and of course, there was always a pudding.

Brandy would be poured all over it and then lit with my nana’s lighter. A blue flame would pan over the pudding, then it would be dished out with cream or custard, whichever you preferred.

Nanna was able to cook with such ease and confidence and watching her prepare and cook always mesmerized me. I know now, without a doubt, that if one truly wants to cook, a kitchen of any size will do, along with a spoonful or more of love.

I hadn’t really understood the depth of my love for cooking growing up as the kitchen was mum’s domain, however, occasionally Dad and I would make soup with vegetables, barley and left-over lamb shanks. Overnight the barley would soften and the meat would fall away from the shank. We would also make hedgehog slice and fruit cake together via Nana’s recipes and a few instructions from her over the phone.

The love of cooking was there but I identified it more with wanting to be like my Nanna who was extremely beautiful, with dark hair, bright eyes and crimson lips.

Her smile was full of warmth. She was nurturing and a little mischievous. She loved deeply and with a full heart. She was adored by her neighbours and those who knew her for her compassion and kindness. Then there was her cooking.

9 9

My nanna was a wonderful cook – preparing all number of things from scratch as if by magic and not only that but she was talented in that nothing was ever wasted. Every possible part of the product was used.

Nanna also grew her own vegetables in a small patch behind the house, where you would find yourself surrounded by bees and the intoxicating scent of Daphne. To the right of the vegetable patch stood a handmade brick BBQ where Dad would cook steaks and sausages that were handmade like small meatloaves. Nanna always prepared warm potato salad with vinegar, butter, onion, salt and pepper (one of my favourites) along with salad and beetroot.

To the left of the veggie patch was an alluring Hydrangea bush covered in bright blue blooms that stood taller than my dad (who was about 6 feet tall).

As our visits would come to an end, we would prepare for the drive home, never leaving Nanna’s without a full belly, a big bunch of hydrangeas and leftover potato salad.

Nanna would send me out to the Hydrangea bush, where she would join me with her secateurs, and together we would pick the biggest and brightest blooms. Nanna would promptly wrap these in old newspaper all the while giving me instructions on how to maintain them for as long as possible once I arrived home.

100

~ Felicity is one of those amazingly talented creatives. I didn’t quite realise this about her until I recieved her letter for the Recipe Letters Project. It was a work of art! Felicity is pursing her passions for creating beautiful stationary.

102

Mum’s Caramel Oat Slice 125 grams butter 1/2 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup plain flour 1 cup coconut

410 grams condensed milk 50 grams butter 2 tbls golden syrup

1 cup coocnut 1/2 cup rolled oats 50 grams butter 1 tbls golden syrup Base: Cream butter, sugar, vanilla. Add flour and coconut.

Press into greased tray with sides. Bake in 180 degree oven for 20 mins. Cool slightly.

Filling: Combine condensed milk, butter and golden syrup in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until butter melts.

Simmer gently, stirring continuously until light golden brown and thick.

Topping: Combine coconut and rolled oats. Melt butter and syrup in saucepan. Add to coconut mixture.

Spread hot caramel over the top and sprinkle with topping. Bake in mod oven 15-20 mins.

Sneaky daughter’s extra: I add melted chocolate to the top once cooled! Oh, and also, I don’t cream the butter for the base. I am an extremely lazy cook but you wouldn’t know the difference!

105

106

Where did your love of food and cooking come from?

Mum and Grandma were both good cooks and foodies., a term we didn’t use back then.

What do you love about cooking?

I like providing more than just nourishment. I like that mother hen feeling, like feeding the chicks. It’s my love language.

I grew up in a house where everyone had to have a bit of fat on them. All the animals had to have a bit of extra fat, all the people who visited had to have a bit of fat. Everyone was well fed. A sign of a happy well-fed house was that all its inhabitants were a bit fat. That’s how Mum viewed it all.

Ha! I have a feeling that I may have that same kind of love language that your mum had, Tammy!

How did you celebrate special occasions with food when you were growing up?

Mum would always cook a baked dinner. The baked dinner was the benchmark. She was good at it and her mother was even better. My grandmother had a fuel stove and there’s nothing like baked dinner cooked in a wood-fired oven.

The meal always had lots of salt and dripping and the way she cut those beans was perfection every single time.

107

Our Nan’s sound like twins.

What are some memories you have around food?

My grandmother’s beans were a massive memory in my life – the way she cut the beans, the knife she used. It had a wooden handle and the blade had an arch worn into it from her using it so often. The blade was paper thin. The angle on every single bean was identical. It was like moving meditation. As a kid I was mesmorised by watching her cut the beans – the speed at which she cut them and the angle – they were a work of art.

She added bicarb and salt to the water and then boiled the life out of them.

Life wasn’t exactly the word Tammy used but this is a wholesome little book. LOL She’d drain them in an old aluminum colander, which had a broken, brown baker lite handle. I still have that colander.

I can’t help continually butting in as Tammy talks about her Grandma. I can relate to everything she says, even down to the old thin knife and the cutting of the beans.

She used to bake cakes. She was heavily involved in the football club and she would do a lot of the catering for special events. She’d cater weddings and never get paid for it. She’d tell the couple that it was her gift to them.

108

I’ve still got the bowl that she used to soak the wedding and Christmas cakes in. I’ve also got her cookbook. It’s called Cookery in Colour.

Another strong memory was the smell of banana cake. I’ve always hated it. I’d come home from school to the smell of mum’s banana cake in the oven and I’d heave at the smell.

My grandmother had a famous banana cake recipe that even made it into a cook book.

How has food been an important part of your life?

I got married at 20 and I had my first child at 22. Does that answer your question? Feeding people! And it’s an extension of mothering, for me.

It’s what we do!

Favourite meal as a kid?

Hotdogs.

Seriously! That was the food I loathed the most as a kid. You don’t strike me as a hotdog kind of girl.

My appreciation for good food came later in my life. As a kid I rejected mum’s baked dinners. She’d make duck l’orange and pigs trotters and pork ribs, but I wouldn’t touch any of it with a barge pole. I’d make dad take me down to the Welcome Inn, our local takeaway place, to get me a hotdog for tea.

111

Mum used to whinge about it all the time. My brother, Brett, and I were fussy and dad was a sparrow eater. Mum would love it when her brothers would come over for tea because they loved her food. She’d pile up their plates.

Mum would always do a baked dinner for tea when they came over. With it would be cauliflower and cheese sauce, cabbage and bacon and the usual baked veggies. At the end of the meal people would go back for a second serving, possibly just to be polite, and she’d serve them up the same size meal again. They walked away absolutely stuffed and Mum would feel so happy.

What’s your favourite meal now?

Salmon – Nigella’s salmon. It’s a Nigella Lawson recipe.

It’s healthy, quick and simple. It’s cooked in soy, brown sugar, sesame oil, miron, rice wine vinegar and served on rice with steamed asparagus or broccoli. That and baked lamb would be my two favourite meals.

Mum used to say baked dinners were the easiest thing to make but it’s taken me a lot of years to master it.

I hate serving a baked dinner. It’s the last meal I’d ever do if I was entertaining. It’s such a precision thing and yep, it’s got to be just right. But I love eating them!

112

What did you enjoy cooking when you were a child?

I never cooked with mum. She wasn’t one of those lovely, nurturing mothers who would cook with their kids. She was a control freak and a neat freak so cooking with us kids would really annoy her. She never physically taught me how to cook but it’s like I’ve got this show reel in my head about how she cooked just from watching her for all of those years. I can see her measuring out the ingredients and stirring and chopping and that’s how I remember how to cook the food she did.

Oh,I love that.

You’re a funny bunny, Tammy – have you got any funny stories to tell around your family and food?

I love picturing my mum and grandma cooking. My mum loved offal, except for brains, but she’d give the kids the brains. She used to buy cans of Heinz brains baby food and give them to me when I first had Mitchell, my first child. Of course I wouldn’t feed it to him. Ew! Really, Heinz had brains for baby food?

Sure did.

Dry retching sound from me.

Mum used to make this particular chocolate cake and it was her special cake. Like, as though she made it up from scratch. She was one of those really secretive recipe people. She wouldn’t ever let anyone have her recipes. But 115

the funny thing was she actually got that chocolate cake recipe from her aunty’s friend. But because Mum wrote it down, Mum felt she could claim it as her own.

One day I was flipping through Mum’s recipe book. I’ve been through it a million times before. There’s mock everything in there. Mock cream. Mock this. Mock that.

She had this one recipe called Mock Chicken.

We go off on a major ramble about mock things.

It astounds both of us that there was a thing in the ‘70s for mock stuff. We can’t think of anything worse.

I’m reading the recipe and thinking it’s not the bloody depression, Mum! A conversation we would have in real life, many, many times. I’d rib Mum about some of the frugal things she’d cook and that she didn’t really need to do those things now that it wasn’t the depression and all.

And then I stumbled on a note in the book and it made me chuckle. I’d never noticed it before. It said: Don’t laugh Tammy, it’s very nice and yes, it came out of the depression!

That brought a tear to my eye, knowing that Tammy could grab another little snippet from her mum. Another way to connect with her. Another giggle. Another treasured moment. I know, too well, how important those little things are when you’ve lost a mum and to find one in that recipe book – priceless. Special note: the gravy boat in these photos is one that Tammy bought when she was 10 years old, at a garage sale just around the corner from her grandma’s house.

116

~ Tammy is a gorgeous friend of mine - again, another creative talent! She has a home-based business called Kalaru Makerist Co where she creates gorgeous linen clothing in slow fashion mode. She also makes wax food wraps and shopping tote accessories. She is one clever, funny, gorgeous gal!

117

Nan’s Apple Pie (and her mum’s apple pie recipe and probably her mum’s mum’s apple pie recipe) This recipe makes two smallish pies or one biggish, but not huge, one.

Pastry: 6 ounces (1 1/4 cups) of self raising flour 4 ounces (1/2 cup) of butter 3/4 of a cup of caster sugar (where did the ounces go, Nan?) 1 tbls cold water (and maybe a bit more depending on the consistency of the dough) a smidgen, as my Nan would say, of milk and sugar to brush and sprinkle onto pastry before it goes into the oven.

Apple Filling: 6 granny smith apples 1 tbls water 2 tbls caster sugar Pop flour, sugar and butter into a bowl. Rub in flour, sugar and butter until crumbly. Add 1 tbls of cold water with a knife, (bone handled of course!).

Bring the dough to a good dough-like, kneadable consistency. If you need a little more water then add it but don’t add too much as you want the consistency to be just right for a nice pastry dough.

121

Roll the dough out and pop it into a greased pie tray.

Now for the apple.

Peel the chop up the apples. Nan slices them instead of dices. She likes to do that. So different to my chunky, rustic, non-peeled way of doing apples but this is Nan’s way and it’s the cool, old fashioned, yummy way, so I’m going with it.

Pop the apples into a saucepan. Then add 1 tbls of water and about 2 tbls of sugar and cook on a lowish heat until the apples are nice and soft.

Let the apples cool a little. Once cool, add the apple to the pie dish. Cover with another layer of the pastry.

Prick the top of the pastry with a fork and then brush with milk and sprinkle with some sugar.

Pop into a 180 degree oven and cook until the pastry is golden.

Then divide the warm pie up it into really large wedges and dollop thick cream or vanilla ice cream all over it.

Scoff and enjoy!

122

WORDS BY EMILY STOKES PHOTOS EMILY’S FAMILY

126

I loved my childhood in rural New Zealand. We lived on a large peninsula, which was a very old volcanic ring of mountains, with a deep blue harbour in the middle. In the ‘70s my parents built a hand-pressed brick house up on the hill overlooking the harbour and village of Akaroa. We would often swim in the freezing ocean, and sail around the harbour in Dad’s small yacht, the tiny Hectors dolphins cavorting around the bow.

One of my happiest memories of that time is sitting on the old wooden wharf with my dad and two sisters, fishing for herring. Blue sky and sparkling water, the seafood was abundant back then, it didn’t take long to cover the bottom of our bucket. Back at home mum would ‘sous’ the herring - slow cook them into a vinegar paste, which we would eat on crackers. I distinctly remember the tart and delicious flavour of that food.

What I don’t recall is the time and care she took to make this time consuming and very nourishing food for us. I certainly appreciate it now. Isn’t that the way?

Other days we would run down the road to the beach and gather mussels, jumping around the rocks in our bare feet. Some days we would catch whitebait in the creek that ran into the ocean flats. We’d bring home our catch to mum and she would batter the mussels for dinner, make whitebait fritters, and serve them with homegrown veggies from the garden. Mum grew cabbages and cauliflowers, carrots and potatoes. Dad 127

kept a few sheep in the back paddock. They grew fat on luscious green grass and we grew strong and tall on chops and leg roasts, stews and curries.

I remember the feeling of sitting around the dinner table eating together. I don’t have any particular memory, more of a feeling. It was special, and it was also a constant, something to be relied on, and something that I believe helped to create the confident and happy people my sisters and I turned out to be.

After being away for 30 years I recently visited the Peninsula, taking my 13-year-old daughter with me. I eagerly pointed out the beach we roamed as kids, the wharf we fished off. We peered over the fence at the house where the veggie patch was and waded through the knee-high grass in the sheep paddock. I felt these feelings of gratitude well up within me, how amazing that I got to spend my childhood in such a beautiful place.

Fields so green it made your eyes hurt, especially eyes now accustomed to red dust and pale green eucalypts.

A place where the ocean was so deep and abundant and giving. And the rich volcanic soil that provided vegetables and fruits full of minerals.

129

But most of all I was grateful for the loving home I grew up in. The family meals shared, the food cooked by my mum that took her great time and effort to grow and prepare. Deep down in some part of me, I knew even then that nourishment through that cooking was love.

Now when I bring up my own children I strive to give them all that I was given – food that is homegrown or gathered, food that is mineral rich and cooked with love.

Mealtimes where laughter and conversation abounds, where each child is recognised and cherished, and where humans are made, from food with soul and heart.

130

Recipe for Sous Herrings

4 large or 6-8 small herrings, cleaned and boned salt and pepper small onion, skinned and sliced into rings 6 peppercorns 1 - 2 bay leaves few parsley stalks 2/3 cup (150 ml) 1/4 pt malt vinegar 2/3 cup (150 ml) 1/4 pt water

1. Trim off the heads, tails and fins, remove the bones and sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper.

2. Roll up from the head end and secure with wooden cocktail sticks.

3. Pack them into a fairly shallow ovenproof dish and add the onion, peppercorns and herbs. Pour in the vinegar and enough water to almost cover the fish.

4. Cover with greaseproof paper or foil and bake in the oven at 180°C (350°F) mark 4 for about 1 hour, or until tender.

5. Leave the herrings to cool in the cooking liquid before serving as an appetiser or with salad.

Emily x 132

~ Emily is a homeschooling friend of mine who spends her days homeschooling her three daughters and creating a sustainable lifestyle for her family on their acreage outside of Candelo, NSW. Emily is a fermenting queen and holds workshops locally and further afield.

LEANNE HOUSE

136

My beautiful mum was my biggest influence when it comes to all things food. While we were growing up she worked really hard, alongside my dad, on the farm, but there was always home cooking.

Mainly biscuits as far as sweet things went. Anzacs, custard creams, ginger creams. All delicious.

Mum also made great caseroles. She organised for the whole extended family to get together for what we called a progressive tea. We would go to one relatives for soup then to another’s for a main course then to another for dessert.

Oh dessert! My mum loved making tarts. Cherry tart made with a beautiful buttery pastry and filled with cherries and a jelly mixture over the top. Lemon meringue pie and custard tart. No wonder I’m so food obsessed. It was great, basic food but always made with so much love.

~

Lovely Leanne is an instagram friend of mine. She left this comment for me one day and I just had to share it with you here in this book.

137

WORDS & PHOTOS BY MICHELLE CRAWFORD

138

At first, I thought my childhood memories of the culinary kind were the stories from my favourite books, but once I dug a little deeper, I found a recipe to share.

I will begin by stating that I don’t have those childhood memories of baking cakes beside a kindly apron-wearing grandmother, of scones in the oven, served with a selection of homemade jams topped with a dollop of cream from the farm. There were no afternoons spent on windswept beaches, crabbing with an energetic grandfather or catching fish off a nearby jetty, hauling in buckets of bream that were swiftly cleaned and rushed to the kitchen. There my grandmother would douse them in flour before frying them in butter, sprinkled generously with Saxa salt, drained on a crumpled sheet of the local newspaper, before being served with squishy white bread and fat sliced tomatoes from their extensive vegetable garden.

139

Such nostalgic memories are sadly, not from my childhood, more an imagined one, which I can conjure easily. I wish they were mine to share. But no, both my grandfathers and one grandmother died long before I could remember them, and my maternal grandmother lived interstate so we didn’t see her very often.

My childhood food memories were mostly created with my parents, and when I was growing up food wasn’t really about pleasure, it was about trying to feed a family with minimal means. Both my parents worked full time, so even just getting the four of us kids fed seven days a week was a miracle that to this day I’m flummoxed as to how it ever happened. Cooking was a chore, certainly not something you did for leisure.

On annual visits to my grandmother, during the summer holidays, she was mostly too busy to spend anytime cooking with a small grandchild by her side, instead she’d smoke her ciggies, sip cold beer from a chilled glass and watch the cricket. She had a full social life, with the church and various social clubs, and would often head out, with a tiny tray of neat quartered sandwiches for the buffet table, to spend time with her friends. And to be honest after stoically raising 5 children of her own, who could blame her.

When she did cook, usually feeding a barrage of ravenous cousins, I would often watch, perched at the kitchen table, but was shooed out of the kitchen if I tried to help with a: “get out from under my feet!”

141

You see, in my world, kids didn’t really help in the kitchen back then, we were expected to be out of the house all day long, and only called in for meals. Which was just the way we liked it, days spent outdoors, riding something on wheels, bikes, skateboards or roller skates and generally getting up to malarkey on the quiet country town streets. I don’t have many memories of my grandmother’s food, only vague recollections of a few things like her jam tarts and rock cakes.

Apart from the pasties, these I remember well, made from left over roast lamb, minced in one of those mincers with a hand crank, that you attach to the side of the bench. I call them pasties in the loosest sense.

Rarely did she make individual ones, but rather she rolled them into giant logs, like oversized sausage rolls, that would be sliced to serve, because no one’s got time for fancy crimping anymore. I don’t have the recipe for them, if she ever did write recipes down in a book, anything tangible like that is long gone. I only have a strong memory of how they tasted and how much I loved them.

To be honest, I have to admit my fondest memories of childhood foods are the ones I read about in books.

I read a lot of English children’s books as a kid, filled with thrilling adventures, midnight feasts in boarding schools, holidays in decaying English manors with disagreeable relatives and secret gardens. A lot of the books were my mum’s 1950s copies of the Famous Five, where teatime played a starring role in the story.

142

As an always hungry child those descriptions laid out by Enid Blyton of farm-fresh food that was quintessentially English and ever so exotic to me, were what I dreamed of. Whether it was a picnic basket collected from a rosy-cheeked farmer filled with ham and radishes, and always a plum cake and boiled eggs, or the magical treats of Pop Biscuits and Toffee Shocks from the Faraway Tree, Enid seemed to have a way of writing about food that struck a chord with an alwayshungry-bookish child.

In Five Go Off in a Caravan, one of my favourites, I love the description of the group as they sit down to eat boiled eggs on a rocky ledge just as the sun is about to set.

“It was a most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds.

They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily. There was a dish of salt for everyone to dip their eggs into.” Sigh, that to me is about as good as a picnic could ever get, and to this day, it’s rare I don’t bring boiled eggs on any hike or picnic because of what Enid instilled in me as a child.

I have a vintage copy of a book written by Enid, titled A Picnic Party with Enid Blyton, where she invites the neighbourhood children over for a story-picnic. Enid describes the food she’s prepared, which to me sounds utterly delicious. Let me tell you what Enid put in her

145

picnic basket “Egg sandwiches, which I hope you like because there’s a lot of those, sardine sandwiches, tomato and lettuce sandwiches, it’s good to have a choice isn’t it?” Enid, I couldn’t agree more. Enid insisted on jam sandwiches, instead of honey which is too runny and sticky for a picnic. There was a very large fruit cake, of course, that could be cut into at least 20 pieces, two Swiss jam rolls and so many biscuits!

To drink Enid made six bottles of lemonade, nice and sweet. This was the stuff I dreamt of eating as a child, in fact I’d happily eat it today.

I love how the food played such an important part in Enid’s yarns, perhaps a carryover from rationing, and an audience hungry for good, simple food. Also, how the food descriptions seem to become more detailed as the series went on. Starting with the first Famous Five book, the adventurers ate a simple spread of cold ham, salad, bacon and eggs, plums and a ginger cake to fuel the discovery of gold ingots on Kirrin Island.

But over the years, as the five go off in a caravan, or camping on Billycock Hill, Enid discovered the importance of food to her stories, “A large ham sat on the table, and there were crusty loaves of new bread.

Crisp lettuces, dewy and cool, and red radishes were side by side in a big glass dish, great slabs of butter and jugs of creamy milk”. There’s no doubt the way I think about food today is inspired by Enid’s simple but evocative descriptions.

146

I love how the food played such an important part in Enid’s yarns, perhaps a carryover from rationing, and an audience hungry for good, simple food. Also, how the food descriptions seem to become more detailed as the series went on. Starting with the first Famous Five book, the adventurers ate a simple spread of cold ham, salad, bacon and eggs, plums and a ginger cake to fuel the discovery of gold ingots on Kirrin Island. But over the years, as the five go off in a caravan, or camping on Billycock Hill, Enid discovered the importance of food to her stories, “A large ham sat on the table, and there were crusty loaves of new bread. Crisp lettuces, dewy and cool, and red radishes were side by side in a big glass dish, great slabs of butter and jugs of creamy milk”. There’s no doubt the way I think about food today is inspired by Enid’s simple but evocative descriptions.

Some 80 years later, Enid Blyton’s books are full of simple things still important today such as friendship, thrilling adventures, using your imagination, getting lots of fresh air, and the comfort of home cooking.

Perhaps that’s what I find most appealing about food in those vintage children’s books, it’s that they’re eating outside, after having been on adventures.

All the characters were truly ravenous, after all that swimming in lakes, rowing on rivers, riding horses and climbing trees in the magical fresh air.

Vegetables from the garden or the farmer’s market, bread from the local sourdough bakery and lots of eggs from our chickens.

148

These days, food seems so complicated, gluten free, vegan, dairy free, keto, organic, fair trade. All relevant and important but I do feel overwhelmingly nostalgic at something as humble as a good sandwich, a simple plum cake, or a perfectly cooked boiled egg. I’m drawn to those simple old-fashioned foods based on fresh local ingredients, which is how we try to eat at home.

Which brings me back to my grandmother, and her cooking, and while I’d love to tell you how to make the perfect curried egg sandwich, cut into dainty triangles and served on a rectangular china plate, just like she used to take to her parties, I’m sure there’s no need to explain that to you. So I’ll share a recipe for left-over roast lamb pasties, which isn’t hers, because there is no written record of them, but it’s my version, based on how I remember them tasting, always with leftover roast lamb, and swede, potato and onion, and seasoned with plenty of pepper.

These are sturdy enough to take on a riverside picnic, a mountain hike, or an adventure on a rowing boat.

For me they’re the perfect blend of grandmotherly nostalgia mixed with the spirit of adventure, of eating outdoors, and a good way to use up leftovers. I think Enid would approve, I know my grandmother would. or an adventure on a rowing boat. For me they’re the perfect blend of grandmotherly nostalgia mixed with the spirit of adventure, of eating outdoors, and a good way to use up leftovers. I think Enid would approve, I know my grandmother would.

150

~

Michelle, oh where do I begin? To be honest, Michelle has been a blog crush of mine ever since I first fell across her gorgeous blog: Hugo and Elsa, many years ago now. Her style, her beautiful use of the written word, her love for country living and home and family are all of the things that I enjoy so much about Michelle’s work. I feel like a crazed fan! And the fact that she has written a piece for The Gather Table - it gives me shivers just thinking about it! (In a good way, not a stalky way!).

Michelle is an author, food stylist, recipe creator and all-round domestic Tasmanian goddess.

And one last thing. You may have noticed that Michelle and I have featured the same Enid Blyton book in our photos. This was not at all planned. How funny.

Roast Lamb Pasties Makes 6 large pasties Ingredients For the Pastry: 450g spelt flour 110g cold lard 110g cold butter 1tsp salt 6tbs cold water Filling: 400g left over roast lamb, finely diced 200g swede, peeled and diced, about 1cm diameter 400g potato, peeled and diced, about 1 cm 1 onion, finely diced 2 tbs butter Egg wash: 1 egg, beaten with a splash of milk

Method Preheat the oven to 200C To make the pastry, put the flour into a mixing bowl and grate in the lard and butter. Add the salt, then rub in the fat with your fingertips until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Add in just enough cold water to bring it together into rough dough. Tip onto your work bench, 155

shape into a ball, then wrap and chill for 20 minutes or so.

Place the potato and swede into a medium saucepan and cover well with water, add a teaspoon of salt and bring to boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until just tender, then drain and set aside.

In a large frypan, melt the butter over medium and gently cook the onion until soft. Add the drained potato and swede and the cooked lamb and season well salt with lots of pepper, you really want to taste the pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

Divide the pastry into six pieces. Roll out each piece on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thick and cut out circles to your desired size. I used a 18cm dinner plate as a guide.

Brush the edges with egg wash, then put a pile of filing in the middle of each disc. Fold the dough over, then pinch the edges together to seal. Crimp as desired, and cut a small hole in the top of each. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Brush the pasties with the remaining egg wash. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 160C and cook for another 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Best served at room temperature, on a picnic with lots of sauce. But if you want to eat them straight away, let them rest for 10 minutes or so.

Michelle x

157

158

My Nan is 86 years old. She is the hub and heart of our family. She’s the glue that binds us all together and she (along with my mum) is the person who has influenced me the most when it comes to food and meal gathering. And everything in life, really.

Nan and Grandpa were married when she was 18 and Grandpa had just (like the day before!) turned 20. She gave birth to six children. One son died when he was only several hours old. Nan became a Nan at the age of 40, when I was born. Over my 47 years of being her grand daughter I have been blessed to have a beautiful and special bond with her. We spent a lot of time together when I was little, and for some of those years we even lived in the same house.

She has lots of grand children, great grand children and now great-great grandchildren, the benefit of starting a family so young. She has also suffered much grief and heart ache. Four of her five children have now passed away. That’s a lot of suffering for one mother to have to bear, but bear it she has. She still has a ready smile and happy heart for all who know her and she is the most strong and treasuredby-all woman I have ever known. Best Nan in the world goes to her. xx

159

1

What are some memories you have around food?

My memory is really bad, Kim. Ummm…I enjoyed teaching my grandkids how to cook apple pies. I didn’t really teach you how to cook anything, did I? Ummm, this entire book idea came from your influence in my life, particularly around food and meal sharing and childhood food memories, Nan! Oh, I don’t remember things very well, Kim, you know that!

Are you getting dementia?

No! I’ve never remembered things, you know that too!

We both giggle.

Ok, phew. You know I have to ask every now and then.

Yes, I know, darl.

What other memories, Nan? I love it when everyone is here and they come in to help in the kitchen. Now that I’ve got this silly leg they do all the work without me cause I can’t get around to do it. (Cheeky, Nan, cheeky) 161

Where did your love of food and cooking come from?

My mum, Big Grandma. She was a good cook.

Did you enjoy cooking with her when you were a little girl?

I don’t remember cooking with her at all, really. She would do most of the cooking and that was that. She wasn’t one of those mums who got their kids up on a stool so that they could help with the cooking. She just did it.

You are so different to her in that way, Nan. What do you love about cooking?

When I was younger I enjoyed making food and everybody seemed to like it. That made me feel success and it was something that I felt I could do. Knowing that other people enjoy my cooking is a good feeling.

How did you celebrate special occasions with food when you were growing up?

162

At Christmas time we always had pudding and fruit cake. The pudding always had threepences, and one sixpence, inside. The ones I gave you were the ones we used as kids.

One year I remember we had a baked dinner but most years it was salads with cold meats, which we cooked on Christmas Eve. The salads were usually tomato,

1

coleslaw and the lemon juice and condensed milk dressing with lettuce. That dressing, with the lettuce, was special.

The meats were pork and ham and usually a duck.

We used to have ducks, so Big Grandpa would go out and kill one right before Christmas. He’d dress it – he had a butcher shop too, you know. I would stuff it with soaked bread in water and egg, thyme, salt and pepper. And some dripping.

Everybody made a mess and it was good fun.

What was your favourite meal as a kid?

A baked dinner. Mum had a fuel stove when we lived in Camden and we’d cook everything in that. It was so nice, much nicer than an electric one.

What is it now?

It’s still a baked dinner, with cauliflower and white sauce, and sweet potato and parsnip, and gravy on the meat.

What was your favourite thing to cook when you were little?

I don’t remember cooking much at all. I remember living at Ocean Street in Narrabeen, but mum always did the cooking.

165

What do you remember her cooking?

She cooked lamingtons and cupcakes and fairy cakes and scones. Usually we’d have them on Sunday when Big Grandpa’s Dad, his girlfriend, Big Grandpa’s sister, and her husband would come over for afternoon tea.

She’d cook all day in preparation.

What was a favourite thing to cook when your kids were young?

They loved chocolate cake and I used cook on a Monday and I’d cook all day so that it would all last us for the whole week. I’d do lots of cakes and biscuits and when they came home from school they’d have to help me clean up the kitchen.

I bet they loved that.

Yeh, probably not.

What’s your favourite thing to cook these days?

I do enjoy making lamingtons and lemon slice and chocolate biscuits with weetbix.

How often do you cook now?

All the time. Although Grandpa cooks now too.

Funny how you can teach an old dog new tricks, isn’t it?

166

We laugh.

I still cook on a Monday, every week. I cook lemon slice with crunchy coconut, those chocolate weetbix biscuits with chocolate icing, choc chip cookies, anzac biscuits. Grandpa loves sugar cookies so I cook those too.

What did you cook a lot of when the kids were growing up?

I don’t remember a lot of what I fed my kids but they all grew up, thankfully. That was my goal, to make sure they had a nourishing meal. Veggies, meat and not too many sweets.

Mostly we’d have rissoles, steak, baked dinners and shanks. Grandpa, being a butcher and owning the butcher shop in Long Reef, would bring home the cheap cuts of meat that wouldn’t sell in the shop. I’d cook those up.

I used to make brawn when the kids were young too, and we’d have that as a cold meat.

How did you make the brawn, Nan? Gravy beef cut small and ox or lambs tongue. You boil the tongue and take the skin off it. Cook all the meat.

Add some thyme and a little bit of onion. Mush it into a pot then put it into a glass basin and put something heavy on top to press it down and then put it in the 169

fridge and let it set. Tip it out and eat it.

I used sell the brawn in the shop when the kids were growing up.

In the background I can hear Grandpa trying to add some details about the brawn …

What did he say, Nan? He said, tell her, when she makes it make sure the tongue is a pickled one. If you can’t get that at least soak one in salt.

I have a feeling that I’m not going to make this, but I don’t say that out loud. Not right then, at least.

You peel the tongue like you peel chicken feet.

Oh, OK. Cool. Dry retch. I’ve never cooked chicken’s feet. Dry retch.

Nan can hear me quietly dry retching down the phone.

They are beautiful, Kim. Boil the feet, then peel off the skin. You just spit out the bits. Big Grandma used to do it. We used to eat the heart and the giblets. We cooked them as a soup with onion and salt and pepper and stock.

Far out! OK, to be honest, Nan, I really don’t think I’ll be making this.

170

They’d go really well in the brawn.

Yep, I don’t doubt they would. Dry retch.

You do a lot of charity cooking, Nan. Can you tell me about that?

Mostly I cook lamingtons to help the hospital auxiliary and if there’s someone who wants to make money for charity then I’ll cook six dozen lamingtons or so.

At the end of the year I cook around five or six Christmas puddings and a few cakes. I give them away as thank you presents for some of the local businesses in Gulgong – the Butchers Shop, the Bank, the Stock and Rural and the Post Office.

Why do you give those businesses presents?

To thank them for looking after us during the year.

Why those particular ones?

I don’t know, Kim. Because we like them. They’ve helped us. I don’t know!

The bane of my Nan’s life is me asking her questions that she can’t answer. She says I’ve always asked questions. When we made apple pies together a couple of years ago I asked her about a couple of the things she was particular about. I’ve actually forgotten what they were now but her answer to them all was: Because my Mum used to do it and I’ve always done it that way. That’s my least favourite answer. LOL 173

What about the charity cooking you used to do?

We used to run Charlie’s Kitchen. The local VRA set up a mobile kitchen especially for Grandpa so he could run the BBQ’s at clearance sales, street fairs, anything that the VRA would participate in. We used to do that quite often. Grandpa would order the meat, cut it up and cook it and I used to do the coleslaw, butter the bread and serve the people. Any money that was made through Charlie’s Kitchen would go back to the VRA. All done! You did it! It wasn’t that hard, was it?

No, that was pretty good, Kim. Better than I’d thought.

I didn’t think I would remember anything.

Well, you did…and you don’t have dementia, yet, so that’s good!

~

Nan and I banter for a little while longer. I don’t get to see her very often and so these phone calls are precious to me. We talk like friends. I could tell her anything and she’d handle it. Ever since mum died, she’s been my go to person and I can’t tell you how much she means to me.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, best Nan ever! xxx 174

The photo of my niece laughing hysterically while eating apple pie sums it all up. Choking on food (but obviously not to death!) due to too much laughter at the table is a sign of a hearty, warming, connected food gathering. And I want many, many more of those!

How about you?

176