Hot stuff for fans of chilli
Organisers triple size of chilli festival
WHEN Lynne Seaton-Anderson was given some chilli seeds to plant on her 14ha property at Murphys Creek, she had no idea it would be such a life changer.
As it turned out, the sandstone flats around the property made the perfect environment to grow a flourishing crop of chemical-free chillis.
Each year she harvested her own seeds to re-plant and the only hitch along the way was the 2011 floods, which were followed up by a further wash-out in 2012.
After learning from that and changing the location of the crop, she and son Jason O’Connor never looked back.
The only real question was what to do with a chilli that had an awful lot of heat, but no flavour.
Mrs Seaton had the perfect answer: use it to make delicious chilli chocolate.
She worked on perfecting the recipe and created a brand name from an old family joke.
Seatonfire chilli chocolate was born, though Mr O’Connor said surprisingly few people got the pun.
But despite having a bit of a laugh over the name, Mr O’Connor said their aim was never to burn people’s bums off, but rather give the tastebuds a tingle.
The duo bought the property 25 years ago, started growing chillis 15 years ago and making the chilli chocolate 10 years ago.
When it seemed like there were no further ways to put more jobs on their already full plates, the idea for hosting Queensland’s only chilli festival popped up.
Mr O’Connor said it was a simple case of having done the circuit through New South Wales and Victoria so many times that they got tired of travelling so far.
Last year they held the inaugural Murphy’s Creek Chilli Festival and it was such a success they grew it exponentially this year.
Read all about it in Rural Weekly, free inside The Chronicle tomorrow.