Valley vendors!
The Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia
The NSW Hunter Valley is known for its wine, but amid the world-class Shirazes and Semillons, lies food, food, and more food…
Nothing makes the stress of city life is just that little bit easier to bear than spending some time chilling out in the crisp, fresh air that had just a puff of chimney smoke about it, sampling cheese and olives (and wine, of course), and growing spherical on gourmet breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
And when it’s all over, you can stock up on a tonne of awesomeness to take back to the big smoke. These are the places I’d definitely return to again for some more tasty goods to show off back home…
Tintilla Estate
Tintilla Estate
Tintilla Estate is a family-run property growing grapes and olives - already two of my favourite things!
As do vineyards, they make wine, but Tintilla dabbles in some of the lesser-grown varieties in the region, such as sangiovese.
Tintilla Estate's vineyard
They preserve and marinate olives on the grounds. I’m not sure if they press olive oil themselves, but they definitely at least supply to pressers. And make tapenade and spreads and other yummy things in jars such as olives marinaded in chilli and lemon. Mmm… They even have a special “mound of olives” as they like to call it, where they grow my beloved kalamatas. *sigh*
Also unique to Tintilla (as far as this region goes, that is) is vinegar making. It’s a big deal to do this on the same property as a vineyard because the flies that hang around vinegar can wreak havoc on vines, but Tintilla has got it down.
There’s also a neat little restaurant there that opens out onto the vineyard which I imagine would be an absolute delight in warmer months.
Binnorie Dairy
Binnorie Dairy
One of my favourite places on this trip was Binnorie Dairy. The cheese from this place is to die for - and I’ve found you can get it in gourmet shops and delis back in Sydney - happiness!
Binnorie is home to award-winning cheeses, including their marinaded feta. It’s so good that if anyone should own the word ‘feta’ (yes, there’s contention over it - like what happened with champagne) it’s Binnorie.
Other gems I tasted were the Labna - a yogurt cheese with zing! - and a delicious blend called ‘Duetto’. Duetto sees the pairing of gorgonzola and mascarpone. You get the extreme flavour of the gorgonzola, but it’s softened by the smooth, creamy mascarpone - genius!
Moorebank Private Vineyard Estate
I didn’t actually get to see inside this place, but I have tried their products. As well as being another winery, they’re also near-obsessive about their spreads, chutneys, sauces, syrups, oils (both edible and fragrant varieties thereof) and dippers.
Moorebank Estate
They have a famous Spicy Grape Sauce, which is, based on what the label says, very versatile. I tried it with cheese and crackers and it was quite sweet. It could work well in a veggie-tofu stir fry (I’ll let you know if I give that a go), though I suspect it might actually be better suited to meats - especially on the BBQ.
But their magical offering, I found, was their Country Garden Chutney Spread. It’s mustardy and tumericy and downright delicious. It’s inspired me to learn more about its main vegetable ingredient - the humble choko.
Pokolbin Chocolate and Jam Co.
The Pokolbin Jam and Chocolate Company
Well, it would take a fairly dire chocolate shop to disappoint me, but happily this one is not dire in any way. In fact, it is marvellous.
And so cute! It’s a little old fashioned shop with colourful walls and stacks of beautiful-looking jars of jam.
Pokolbin's choc penguins
Then there’s the chocolate cabinet - it may look small, but don’t underestimate the variety. The passionfruit one with the purple sugar on the outside, and the penguins with the peach ganache, were wicked. They also have fresh fudge to for you try and buy.
Meanwhile, back at the shelves, I discovered something glorious…
*Choir of angels sings* Dark chocolate-covered cranberries (okay, so I’ve since found them back in Sydney, but still, both were joyous discoveries…)
The Hunter Valley Smelly Cheese Shop
I’ve saved the best for last.
“But something other than chocolate isn’t cited as the best in a Keira Daley blog?!” you protest.
Yes, the shop has an ultra-mega-super selection of cheese to choose from. Yes the shop has the best of all the local cheese, as well as imported stuff. And yes, the shop has a separate little room full of what’s either the stinkiest cheeses (some people say the stinkier the better) or the ones that need to be kept at a separate temperature - or both.
But the very best part about this shop is… the gelato.
So why are you a vego?
It’s the question I’ve been asked countless times since I made the switch almost 12 years ago. Sometimes it can be a loaded question designed to get you on a militant rant about cages and extolling the virtues of tempeh, but most of the time, people are just curious. And fair enough - if I met an alien, I’d be curious too.
Unfortunately, the answer I’ll almost always give is pretty bland and not even close to the whole(grain) truth. First, I’m quick to put them at ease with this:
“It’s just a matter of preference, not activism or anything…”
Then, once I feel a little bit less like they’re going to hate me, I follow it up with a bit more of an explanation…
“I never really liked meat as a kid, then one day I gave up red meat and never ate it again. The other animals kind of just marched off with it too and I was left alone with the veggies in the garden…”
Okay, so that’s a far cleverer version of what I actually say. Still, it’s only part of the story.
It all began when I was 15 and I found a leaflet from a health food store on the health benefits of vegetarianism. In a clever, informal-albeit-bombastic style, it went so far as to claim that, in an evolutionary/biological sense, humans were simply not equipped to be carnivores.
Carnivores, it said, have sharp, pointy teeth, while herbivores have flat, square-ish teeth. Carnivores have short, fast intestinal tracts (ew), while herbivores have long, involved ones (also, ew). To my knowledge, this is where all of those “undigested meat sitting in your gut” arguments come from. It also said that the naturally-forming toxins in an animal much larger than us, such as a cow, are in too high a concentration for our consumption.
Then there are the other aspects of modern life such as the hormones and antibiotics given to livestock, mercury in the water for seafood, and feeding normally grain-eating animals their own dead relatives in pellet form. And none of this even touches the humanitarian argument, or the idea of how cruelty or trauma might affect the quality of what you eat.
Whether all - or any - of this stuff is absolute, unequivocal fact, I’m not sure. However, to a 15-year-old know-it-all who made ’being contrary’ a way of life, it was a pretty convincing argument. Add to that…
- “I never really liked meat” - I still remember being about 5 years old and sitting at the table eating around the mince in spaghetti bolognese! Now that’s dedication…
- I got quite sick from chicken once, to which a relative replied “you can’t let one experience dictate your whole life”. Oh no? Just watch me!
- And one day, I decided that seafood “wasn’t that great anyway”…
…and voila - I became a vego.
This occurred to the mild amusement of some of my friends, and the sheer horror of others. Then there were the parents of friends who thought it heralded an eating disorder - which is ridiculous considering my lifelong obsession with chocolate and my 100% serious phobia of puking (that’s another story)!
And now, 12 years later, it seems my vegetarianism isn’t a passing fad or me being contrary, and it’s certainly not an eating disorder! But I’m not an activist either.
“It’s just a matter of preference…”