It started with a trip to Tasmania, one of the most beautiful places in the world, where amazing food and stunning wines are being produced. Is it the cleanest air in the world, the temperate climate (or cold as the mainlanders would call it), a slower pace of life or some other, undefinable something, that made the food so tasty? I was travelling with kids so didn’t get much of a chance to sample the wine, driving past gorgeous vineyards with slightly teary eyes, but I made up for it with food. Having a car, I could load it up with heavier items that would never have made it into my luggage with the strict weight limits on planes.
Three quarters of our group were particularly fond of scones and all of us like berries so we made a point to visit as many berry farms and cafes serving high tea as we could find. This is why I arrived home with in excess of ten jars of jam.
They were all good, but one stood out from the rest. It was luck more than anything that we found it far up into the Derwent Valley, chasing a dog-friendly hiking trail followed by a well deserved scone at the Possum Shed in Westerway. Just down the road from the café, which served a very good high tea, along with a few dog treats on their own plate for our hound, was the Westerway Raspberry Farm.
The season was over by the time we arrived in April, but we were able to buy the last of the late harvest raspberries and some raspberry jam. The berries were unbelievably good, and the jar literally evaporated.
I had to go online and see if I could get more. Luckily there was a website and although I couldn’t buy it online, I emailed the owner of the Westerway Raspberry Farm, the very friendly Richard, who luckily agreed to post me more jars.
Rearmed with jam, it made me think about all the times I’d found something amazing and how great it would be to tell people about it and also how to get it directly from the farmers, if possible. There are so many people doing wonderful things and connecting consumers with them would be a great benefit, I think to everyone involved.
The Curated Condiment 