A mid-winter taste of the Huon Valley
Willie Smith’s fires up again this weekend for the Huon Mid-Winter Festival. Firey drama includes the Straw Man to be shot down in flames this Friday night, the huge bonfire on Saturday and Ned Long’s chandelier made from wine barrels from which hang sausages to be smoked and cooked over hot coals.
Matthew Evans has bacon baked beans from Fat Pig Farm, and The Princess and the Fat Man have rabbit stew with rabbit bacon and vegetables cooked in cider and served over herbed couscous.
This new business belongs to David and Karan Spilling who bought a small farm in Geeveston a decade ago so that their daughter Abigail would know where her food came from.
They graze beef and have two big polytunnels for vegetables but from a start of just one buck and doe gifted by a neighbour the enterprise turned into a rabbit farm.
Despite that first rabbit pair producing a litter within a month, Karan, a former midwife, says they do not “breed like rabbits”.
“If the light is not quite right they are not interested, if the boys have not been around to do a bit of courting the girls are not interested,” she said.
They introduced British Giant and New Zealand Giant genetics to the farm and now produce bunnies that can grow to 9kg. Rabbits are sociable animals and these ones live in groups.
Dave was working as an emergency doctor but has taken early retirement and their career change is complete.
As well as the stew they will sell Wabbit Wings (the forelegs brined and marinated in Asian flavours) and a bacon, sage and rabbit pie.
And the name? The Fat Man was a name given to Dave as a medical student in Sydney and Karan, growing up with three brothers was always was The Princess.
Like the Spillings, Ned Long is a familiar face at Willie Smith’s. They are both regulars at the Artisan Market on Saturdays between 10am and 1pm.
Ned is a chef by trade and has a farm Wild Grove in the Huon Valley. For the Mid-Winter Festival he teams up with Toni Burnett-Rands of Honey Child and competition barbecuer Jimmy Anderson.
The name Junkyard Barbecue has sort of been bestowed on them, and Ned is happy to own it as he does have “four or five cooking contraptions that use a lot of repurposed things”.
As well as the sausage chandelier, there is a bicycle-powered spit (volunteers welcome) on which will turn mutton and a couple of chickens.
There is also squid cooked over a 44 gallon drum brazier and whole sweet potatoes cooked in the ashes.
Rocket at the End of the Road is the name of Rose Wright’s pop-up business right where she says it is at the end of the Huon Highway at Southport.
Her little kiosk is shaped like a rocket and she serves space statistics along with coffee, meteorites (bliss balls) and home galaxy cookies.
Prompted by her space-age accommodation, Rose has joined the Astronomical Society and bought herself a telescope. “I just wanted to do coffee in Southport and it led to a lot of other things exploring the universe really,” she said.
The kiosk closes in winter, but has outings to festivals. It was at Dark Mofo and will be at Willie Smith’s next weekend. Rose will be selling apple fritters developed with the Mid-Winter Festival in mind.
They are a little like a rosti, mostly fruit held together with a light batter. They are served with ice cream and space dust (shattered hazelnut praline).
The General Store at Ranelagh will not open over the festival weekend. Instead, owners Tim Ditcham and Peisha McHeyzer will be at Willie Smith’s.
Their offerings include barbecued kofta lamb sticks, one dipped in garlic yoghurt and the other in plum chutney, served on turmeric rice and slow-cooked pork belly with a warm blue cheese sauce, apple paste and apple slaw.
And for the vegos they have barbecued corn cobs with truffle butter and lentil balls with a satay sauce.
The Taiwan-Australia couples I wrote about for Dark Mofo — David and Cassandra Rolph of Deep End Farm at Geeveston and Sam Gardener and Tang-Ya Yang, of Formosa Bites from the East Coast — will do a reprise at the Mid-Winter Festival.