Ed’s letter
EVERY SEPTEMBER, WE canvas the country for our nation’s best: the produce, people, and places to celebrate. The delicious. team embarked on a mission to explore Australia like never before, often in the grip of some interesting or strange adventure in order to put this issue to bed. From near-misses on remote dirt tracks, to meeting readers on deserted beaches, or suffering through sea sickness on tiny boats, we can confidently say we covered new ground in the line of delicious. duty!
I squeezed myself into a tiny plane with a pilot navigating while on a mobile phone, to make the 30-minute flight from Launceston to Flinders Island, a remote part of Tasmania with a local pub and rave cave reminiscent of Priscilla Queen of
the Desert, a sausage sizzle vastly different to the average Bunnings affair and a unique condiment shop (called Condimental) with brews and ferments that blew my mind (and Alex Atala’s apparently). It was the second year of the annual Flinders Island Food & Crayfish Festival, where seven of our country’s most innovative young chefs, sourced wild food in season and cooked a memorable feast in the elements. Food director Phoebe Wood and I hosted a cooking demonstration (saltbush flatbreads with miso crayfish – the recipe for the flatbreads is on page 123) and a host of orphaned baby wombats were curled up in crocheted blankets in the front row. I’ll never forget it, and you can read more about our crazy experience on page 114.
I bravely squeezed myself into another small plane with a posse of big personalities and delicious. contributors for an assignment on Lord Howe Island – another untouched paradise belonging to the state of New South Wales. The one policeman on the island wisely left the day our motley United Nations mafia – Colin Fassnidge (Irish), Manu Feildel (French), Anthony Puharich (Croat), Monty Koludrovic (Russian) and I (Queenslander) – touched down on the tiny airstrip. We borrowed a local’s Mitsubishi, and after a few jumpstarts, explored every inch of the heritage-listed location, cooking crays, swimming with turtles, jumping off jetties, fishing, bee-keeping and brewing our very own tea with the island’s best ingredients. Read about it on pages 134 and 98.
Finally, this month is the culmination of a year’s worth of work as we announce the winners of the annual delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards (p 14). Our remit is to unearth Australia’s best, most sustainable and innovative produce, regions and producers. From sampling Qukes at Gerry Harvey’s farm (the largest in Australia, p 66) in Peats Ridge when he crashed our regular Chef and The Butcher column, to exploring the first harvest at national judge Alla Wolf-Tasker’s new cooking school and lodge Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm (p 82), to the rigorous judging days in the top kitchens around the country, this one-of-a-kind process always makes us feel lucky to call Australia home.