|
Although there were some good local craft and quality pottery stalls in
the big Bushranger Hotel tent, it was the food stalls that attracted the
bulk of the crowd and are the festival's primary focus.
Silo Bakery & Cafe in Kingston must have been up early and worked overtime, they
were rewarded as demand
for their brioche, chocolate croissants and sourdough bread meant the stock disappeared fast.
The Silo pumpkin-themed offering to the day was the pumpkin fougasse on the previous
page. Many of the stallholders tried to include some pumpkin products
into their wares.
Lerida Estate wines thankfully stuck to products of the grape. Definitely
a 'local producer' this Lake George winery is not far from Collector, on the east
facing slopes beside the Madew vineyards and the grapefoodwine restaurant. It certainly
wasn't T-shirt weather so Lerida Estate's marketing manager had to do the Superman
alter-ego and open his jacket to show the logo.
Braidwood Traditional Ales are a small 'artisinal' brewery situated outside the ACT,
providing a challenge to the Civic based Wig & Pen Taven & Brewery which has a strong local following.
Braidwood Breweries' bottle 'conditioned' ales and stout are finding a home
in a number of local restaurants. You can find the ales at Lynwood Café,
up the road a bit at Grazing in Gundaroo, at Lamberts Vineyard
Cafe in Wamboin and in Canberra at Aubergine and Courgette restaurants.
Brewer Scott Watkins-Sully (right in photo above)
didn't have to chill the beers much and was also serving Braidwood's Misty
Mountain Yabbies.
Sometimes you can pick a fish out of water at these food events, in this
case it was an oyster. Ulladulla Oysters have been making a strong
promotional push at recent events such as at Taste '04, where a warm day made
an excellent dozen oysters on ice, slide down a treat. It's a peak season
for oysters now but at Collector in the freezing
wind, there wasn't much activity around their stall, it seemed like
everyone was looking for something warming, hot soups and rolls.
Jeanette Simpson
(rugged up left top) of Boutique Beverages & Gourmet Foods stall, had
included some almost regional local product such as the new BerrySweet
juices from Tumbarumba and a full range of Maggie Beer products from the
Barossa.
Jeanette's
website
has a range of her products on display. |
These preserved pumpkins caught the light and a few photographers' eyes. They were
part of the display on the Berry Bakery stall
Pope's Eggs from Qualigo employed the
whole family as sales staff (when they weren't eating Dad's bacon and egg
rolls).
 Lynwood
Café's pikelets, with the Café's homemade jam, and a dollop of whipped cream walked away
(usually dripping down children's chins) as fast as the cook could turn
them. A good pikelet must be nearly an Australian national dish
although the Welsh and Scots both lay claim to it. They're made in
Australia with
baking soda and cream of tartar and we leave out the butter. If your
mother didn't show you how to make them, the Scottish recipe is
here
and ABC radio decided that
this was the definitive Australian one.
T.B.P Baking couldn't keep the pies in the oven long enough to get more
than warm! T.B.P are from Goulburn and they
had their range of Bryants Pies, family sized and individual.
Proving simple things are often the best, was this couple selling hot corncobs
which were in high demand.
Doonkuna Orchards are a
familiar face, they've been a regular at Canberra's Taste, and at Collector they were
selling fresh new season apples by the bag. Bargains!
Lester and Joy Price from Crookwell had a range of their gourmet organic
potatoes including King Edward,
Spunta, Nicola, Kipfler, and Charlotte varieties.
 |
|
Sean Sampson had a range of his Musgrave House
Olive products and Tavender's Shiraz Worchester Sauce (and a tasty Dill and Mustard Dressing)
for sale. Musgrave House is between Grenfell and Young and won a
Bronze award with their first showing at the Australian Olive Association
Show in 2001.
Country Bumpkins soup?
Berry woodfired sourdough bakery as a company name says pretty much what they do, but
here they were also selling the delicious roasted pork on pumpkin bread
rolls.
Rhonda Gillen from Leura in the Blue Mountains would have been quite at
home with the cold. She made the journey to Collector with a range of her
Victory Lane jams and jellies. Beautifully presented and catching the low
autumn sun the display just glowed.
|
Gardiners' Wee Jasper Honey offered Snow Gum, Patterson's Curse and
Thistle honey varieties. The range has attractive packaging, especially
noted was the cut-comb box of Paterson's Curse honey.
This years strong growth of Paterson's Curse has been a problem for
farmers with stock and horses eating the weed, but bees love it and it
makes great honey. (Which can be toxic and we
now
know should be eaten in moderation.)
It's a great day, (and below) make sure you enter the raffle before you go. See you
on Mayday, May 1 2005.
Web Links
There's more Pumpkin Festival on the web.
The official site for the Collector Pumpkin Festival is
www.pumpkinfestival.com.au
. Some of these photos and more are in Fred's
Another Country Diary.
The
Collector community website has some town information and a suggested
'history walk'.
The Collector School
website has a short history of the town.
The importance of pumpkin's in Mantua's festival and especially 'tortelli
di zucca' is mentioned
in this web article by Lee Marshall. |
