Sadly I wasn’t able to make it to the Heston Blumenthal talk in Sydney last week-call it extreme tiredness and jetlag! But everyone’s favourite Mad Hatter of a chef really needs no introduction. He is the chef and owner of The Fat Duck, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Berkshire, England awarded Best UK Restaurant award in the Good Food Guide in both 2007 and 2009. And he ‘s also quite mad and extraordinarily creative-in the best way of course!

I’m a person that loves history and and during this series he uses fairytales and bits of history and melds them together. To be a guest at one of these dinners is an item on my bucket list. In the two season box set each episode sees Heston explore a different period of innovation as he recreates lost recipes and rediscovers forgotten flavours and ingredients. There is the Willy Wonka feast, a fairytale feast as well as gothic inspired feasts drawing on iconic works of horror such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

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For years and years I considered myself a true through city girl. I had no interest in visiting country areas and every time we would go away for a holiday I would zip off to some large city or an island and find joy there and I found that I left most of my very own country undiscovered. You see I thought that the country had nothing to offer me (well apart from a husband as Mr NQN is a country boy!)

Oh how I was wrong!

Now, ever since I started this job blogging full time over 2 years ago and have been privileged enough to visit country areas all around Australia, I keenly look forward to going to these areas. For starters, there is the connection to food producers that I look forward to. And country people are full of charm too-generally, what you see is what you get.  Then there is the rush of freedom. There’s nothing quite like speeding away and leaving the city grind and gridlock behind and looking up at blue sky rushing past you, the smell of eucalypts, the green hued canopy of trees and the occasional car.

I don’t know about you, but if I get on a flight and the seat next to me is vacant then I feel like the gods of travel are smiling on me. And if two seats are free, then I feel like I’ve won the lottery. Thankfully with the 4.30am start I have won the airline lottery and have two seats so I stretch out asleep and in what seems like moments later, I arrive in Brisbane airport where I meet the lovely Kerry, a blogger and a journalist who is our host for the trip!

We arrive at the Granite Belt just a few hours outside of Brisbane. The what belt you may ask as Mr NQN and I did when I first heard of the Granite Belt. It is Queensland’s coolest area and one of high altitude- so cool in fact that they even have accommodation promotions where if the weather hits over 25 degrees celsius then your stay is free. And you know what cooler weather and high altitude means right? That’s right, great produce! In fact it is the only area in Queensland that can grow apples and it grows about 80% of the all of the grapes for Queensland wines. Yes Queensland makes wine!

I’m only an hour ahead but you know me. It’s an hour that stands between me and lunch and if you’ve ever wanted to see my head spin and the exorcist happen just stand between me and food. I’m glad when we arrive at Suttons, a lovely apple farm where you can do some apple picking and partake of a lusciously large apple pie. Now I know you’ve seen apple pies but have you seen anything as grand as theirs? A record 22 apples go into each of these pies and they’re sharing the recipe with us!

“I said we’d never do tourism and then I said we’d never open a cafe” Ros Sutton, along with her husband David owns the Suttons apple farm. Granite Belt apples are usually marked when they feature in products as they are a hallmark of quality apples. They have many varieties of apple juices available as well as apple products. And their cafe is made up of home made goodies that change according to whatever is ripe or ready to be picked in the orchard. All of the food is made on the premises with nothing at all brought in including tomato sauce and spreads and chutneys.

But what to give some thirsty parched travellers than some lovely apple juice? There are several different varieties that they bottle and the first one we try is the Sundowner apple juice. I love apple juice that tastes like the juice that drips out of a juicy apple when you bite into it and this is just that. There is nothing like it and many supermarket brands taste like you’ve bitten into an apple that has gone brown.

Ros with her famous apple pie

The apple juice is pure juice and nothing else, no vitamin C acid or ascorbic acid or bentonite that helps to make the apple juice lighter in colour by clarifying it. Their apple juice is also cold pressed and they freeze the apples just prior to pressing. We try the summer delicious and a few others and they’re all distinctly different but the Sundowner is my favourite. Customers can try any of their juices in the store before purchasing them and they retail for $4.50 per litre.

Apart from the apple juice they also make an apple jelly and a divine apple butter and apple chutney, apple cider (using an old English method and wild yeast) and apple brandy (whew! this is strong!) and apple vinegar which smells strong but tastes quite pleasant and mild-like salt and vinegar chips.

Ploughman’s Platter

But enough of this juice, let’s eat! I choose the ploughman’s platter which features some gorgeous, perfectly cooked, tender corned beef, three relishes and pickles with the favourite being the cucumber relish, two types of cheeses and house baked bread which is soft and moreish. It’s just the right size for someone like me that also wants a bit of variety.

Sausage roll $4

The beef sausage roll is homemade and housed in a flaky pastry. The mince is soft and it comes with a homemade tomato sauce.

Chicken sandwich

Lamb patty salad

Apple pie with apple cider ice cream $8.50

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Why is it every time I see the implements of torture for crab, the first thing I think of is that chilling movie Dead Ringers? Still it doesn’t stop me from ordering crab, just gives me momentary pause for thought. Liss and I are sitting at a waterfront table at Kingsleys Steak and Crab House, the very last restaurant on the wharf which sits halfway down. We’re handed a large, paper menu which resembles a New York steakhouse menu. On the left are the creatures of the sea and on the right are the four legged creatures complete with black and white sketches of a pig, fish and a lamb.

Bread

Alaskan King Crab Legs 200g $19.90

There was no doubt in both of our minds that we were going to try the Alaskan King Crab Legs. Everyone by now has heard of or watched “The Deadliest Catch” where for the short three week harvest season fishermen risk their lives fishing the Bering Sea in order to catch these Alaskan King Crabs. The bodies themselves are fairly empty and all of the meat is concentrated in the long thick legs. This was the first time we were both trying it. The legs are precracked and are easy to crack open due to the strategic cracking. It is served with a mayonnaise and the meat is sweet and moist and we both instantly regret not ordering the bigger size. If I were to describe the texture of the meat it is firm and I would guess that seafood extender is trying to emulate the texture.

WA lobster and Qld King Prawns Salt and Pepper $44.90

The Western Australian lobster tail comes coated in a crunchy salt and pepper batter with three large Queensland king prawns. The king prawns still have their shells on and are best eaten shell and all or peeling them would make you lose all of the flavour on the batter. It’s not a typical light salt and pepper batter, it is much crunchier and a bit drier. The lobster tail is a tad tough and meaty and we prefer the prawns. They’re served with a nice garlic aioli.

Burrata Mozzarella $21.90

This salad had three of my favourite ingredients: heirloom tomatoes, 25 year aged balsamic vinegar and burrata. If you’ve never heard of burrata, it’s a cheese well worth acquainting yourself with. It has a mozzarella type outer and inside it is filled with cream. Their burrata is from Queensland but if you are curious, Paesanella do an excellent one too. The burrata here sits like a shiny, plump bag of treasure at the bottom of a glass, glistening with olive oil and the syrupy aged balsamic. The maitre’d places it on top of the salad and pours the balsamic and oil around it to dress the salad. The fresh flavours of the tomatoes, the tiny basil leaves and the creamy burrata are heaven together.

We turn around and see a couple of girls who have parked their boyfriends at the pub and are enjoying a Singapore Chilli mud crab (1-1.2kg $64.90). Not only are they wearing something to protect them but they are full length plastic aprons! “I don’t ever want this to end” one says and Liss and I ask if they have any crab left. Alas they have just sold their last one! Never mind, we say but our maitre’d asks if we would like more of the Alaskan crab legs. We look at each other, widen our eyes and nod eagerly.

Wagyu Rib Eye 400g $56.90

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