Someone asked me once, actually about one year ago, what I would normally be doing on my weekends if I weren’t working. I looked at her oddly. “I’d be doing this” I answered. It’s absolutely true, I would do what I currently do in the name of interest and research being completely obsessed with food. And this year on my birthday there was no sleep in, no rest for the wicked as they say but a 6am rise and a Paddock to Plate cooking class and trip with The Essential Ingredient. Because of course that’s what a perfect birthday weekend is made up of!

I deliberately kept the early rise to myself. We were without a car and the idea of getting to The Essential Ingredient in Rozelle by 7:20am was a hard sell so I left it until a couple of days before to tell Mr NQN. He gave me a look. You know the look that says that he was about to say “forget it” but then he stopped himself and realised that it was my birthday so he was coming along.

It’s a creaky, cold day but one bursting with sunshine which makes this trip even more fortuitous. You see we would be shopping for our produce at a grower’s market and then watching a cooking demonstration and eating our lunch afterwards and the entire class goes from 7:30am-1pm. And who should be taking this class but the lovely Tawnya Bahr who held the food expedition that I went to on last year’s birthday. Tawnya is a fabulous guide and well versed in the food industry with contacts a mile long and a great instinct for what people want. And that morning, at 7:20am it’s coffee!

We pile into the bus and make our way to Pyrmont Growers Market. The aim of these classes is to show people that you can indeed buy 95% of the produce for a meal at a market like this. We will be stopping in to see some stands to visit four stallholders who have something special to show us. Then we will have some time to go shopping (Yay!) and then pile back onto the bus to watch chef Rob Hodgson from La Grande Bouffe prepare the food that we’ve bought.

Our first stop is at Over the Moon dairy where they sell non homogenised Jersey cow milk from their cows in Wauchope. Their milk sells at Harris Farm for $6 for 2 litres and we try a taste of it. This milk actually has flavour in it and tastes like the milk that you used to get years and years ago.  They also sell cream here and today they’ve brought in their butter churner where they will make us some freshly churned butter.  It takes Carl about 10 minutes to churn the butter manually (although they use machines for production). And this is the glorious double cream that I used to make our own butter.

Our next stop is the very entertaining John from Thirlmere Poultry named after the location of the same name near Picton. They own the trademark for Meredith ducks  and produce a fabulous duck. Restaurant goers can often see Thirlmere products mentioned on the menu. Their cross bred Meredith ducks are actually processed at 9 weeks old whereas ducks are usually 5-6 weeks old producing a quality product. “People asked us whether we had a magic breed of duck” John says laughing.

Duck rillettes

John was inducted into the Food Hall of Fame for his work within the poultry industry and it is a story of lucky timing for them as a Landline story on the farm was “like winning the lotto.” Suddenly their market opened up and Singapore and Hong Kong buyers were interested in their ducks which are fed on high protein hormone free feed and are hand reared.

Duck confit and duck rillettes

John shows us one of their products, a rillette which he recommends warming up in the microwave for 20 seconds to take the fat off it. It’s delicious spread on some baguette.

Mother in Law mandarins-said to be sweet and sour!

Our next stop is at the Darling Mills farm where they grow a range of herbs and edible flowers as well as micro herbs. The family that own this used to own the Darling Mills restaurant in Glebe but now they grow produce including 30 varieties of microherbs (first requested by Tetsuya) either 1. hydroponically 2. organically in the ground or 3. in a greenhouse.

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For many years now there has been a restaurant that I have passed on the way home. It is sometimes lit up and at other times pitch dark depending on the evening, There are also broad banners proclaiming “Restaurant Of The Year”. And every time we say to ourselves “We must check it out”. And then one night we drove past and saw the magic words “Psychic reading”. Now I know this may be a red flag to some of you but to people like us it is like a curled finger beckoning at us to come in.

Now Queen Viv being a bit of a bossy boots proclaimed that she didn’t want to eat there until Winter. Turns out she was right, for this freezing cold evening we enter Mulligan’s and rubbing our cold hands together we make our way to a table by the crackling fireplace. And trust me that a place in front of a fireplace in the current Sydney cold is the place to be. This evening is so cold it seems that Jack Frost has truly arrived and lined our coats with ice.

Eilleen the hostess is instantly welcoming and speaks with you like you are a long lost family member. She is gentle but firm when people have to be turned away without a booking, and there are several that we witness having to take the long, cold route back home. She tells us that they’re booked up for weeks to come and every Thursday night they have psychics upstairs telling people about their futures. Tonight there are four upstairs including some well known ones that have written books and featured on television.

“Nil aon tintean mar do thintean fein” or”There’s no fireside like your own fireside”

I check with Eilleen about the psychics-we have come here tonight as Queen Viv is going through a odd patch in her life and we felt that the psychic visit would do her well. Eilleen’s face lights up and tells us that there is a table at the front where there is a spirit and that she was clued onto it as she could smell perfume there. Then this afternoon when all four psychics arrived they all saw the same blonde girl sitting there. She also tells us how she and her husband Sean stay here while the restaurant is open in order to take early morning deliveries and closing and opening doors are a common occurrence and objects have been known to move and hover.

The table with the spirit!

Irish soda bread and butter

We ponder the menu while eating the soda bread. Two courses are $45 and desserts are an extra $15. There are specials every day and given that there is a Christmas tree up for Christmas in July we can’t help but complete the fireplace side experience by ordering the Christmas roast dinner. This Irish soda bread is moist, fresh with a delicious crunchy crust and with the texture unlike bread and more like cake-it reminds me of a pumpkin bread that I make. I realise that I haven’t seen butter curls in the longest time.

Parcels from Carlow

The first item that arrives are the parcels from Carlow which are shortcrust pastry wrapped chicken and mushroom and they are fantastically moreish. Miss America declares “I could eat a plate full of these”. They come with a creamy red wine sauce and the buttery pastry is flakey and comforting with just the right amount of filling.

Mrs. Mulligan’s Black & White Pudding with Bacon

Most of us are fans of black pudding except for Miss America. It comes as two slices each of black and white pudding with a generous amount of bacon and a lick of mustard sauce. The white pudding is white peppery and oatmealy and the milder version of the two whilst the black blood pudding is richer but not overtly so with just the right amount of seasoning and doesn’t taste too metallic as some can from the blood. They’re both good and pairing it with bacon and the mild mustard sauce makes them even better. “It tastes like the pudding was fried in bacon fat” Queen Viv says with approval.

Boxty Pancakes

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