Where Murder is on the Menu
Lisa O’Connor is the Jam Lady, maker of exquisite jams, pastes and marinades.
Since moving from Elwood to Healesville in 2001, the jams have been coming thick and fast.
The jams are exquisite – the Syrian Spiced figs will leave you reeling (is that brandy in there?) My personal favourite is Quince with Rosewater – but I Love Quince
Cavallini, 354 Queens Parade, Clifton Hill
I haven’t dropped in for a coffee at Cavallini’s for a long while.
Queens Parade is just across the creek from me, a colourful strip on my way to the Queen Victoria Market but I rarely shop here, everything is overpriced beyond a joke.
By chance I found myself in Cavallini’s again. Bonne chance indeed!
This European-style patisserie not only serves excellent coffee, gorgeous cakes and artisan bread but must have the best service in town. The staff are truly a delight.
I love the wooden boxes in the window filled with fresh sourdough and olive bread, the counter lined with crispy pastries and especially the gold-rimmed cabinets filled with rolls of paninis, pizza slices and arancini.
I dragged my eyes away (with difficulty) from the biscotti and baci di dama and chose a butterscotch macaron instead. And what a macaron! So light and lovely that I had to order another.
Christina chose a chocolate canoli, a favourite Sicilian pastry dessert of sweet, smooth ricotta filling encased in a crisp, firm shell.
Two coffees and two cakes under $12, perfect staff and half an hour of gossip with a friend adds up to a wonderful reason to stop in Clifton Hill.
Cheryl Dingle has a 25-acre property outside Maldon with five of those acres turned over to an extraordinary permaculture garden.
She grows potatoes in car tyres, tomatoes in ever rising beds, 17 varieties of figs, avocadoes, macadamias and ginger. You find tomatillos, tamarillos, and Cape Gooseberries in a quietly mouldering car body on the property. The car, by the way, is lined with plastic, and it makes an excellent hothouse. In winter she winds the windows up on the seedlings inside and the winter sun heats up through the glass. As spring draws on she gradually unwinds the windows, until the doors are flung wide open at the height of summer.
Her kitchen garden is outside the back door, where she grows all kinds of useful things: tomatoes, orach, coriander, parsley, edible weeds like fat hen and stinging nettle. Every single garden bed on the property is sealed in plastic, but because of all the recent rain they have become waterlogged. She’s pretty cheerful about that, though, as it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Dingle grows enough food to feed her family and to sell excess at Talbot Farmers Market once a month.
I’m very fond of Castlemaine.
Sitting between Ballarat and Bendigo this lovely little country town has plenty of vintage charm.
The Good Table is one of the newer and classier additions to the local dining scene, specialising in sophisticated but unpretentious European fare.
Some 150 years ago, Castlemaine came into its own when gold was found at Specimen Gully. More than 30,000 miners flocked to these parts to seek their fortune. There was a hotel on every corner and several in between – the Council Club Hotel remained a popular watering hole until the 1970s.
Today, as The Good Table, the high-ceiling space is welcoming, with arcaded windows, polished floorboards, bentwood chairs at timber tables set with linen napkins.
The menu lists ”small” dishes and ”larger” dishes, all designed to share. We choose a few of each: a smooth, rich duck liver pate with superb shiraz jelly and thin toast slices ($12), home-grown zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta, lemon and olive ($4 each) and, fried in the lightest batter, tangy and melt-in-the-mouth kingfish ceviche with pink peppercorns ($16) and pickled octopus with green pepper and chardonnay vinegar ($11).
The Good Table’s atmosphere has a warm vibe, enhanced by the wooden floorboards, tables and chairs, the flashes of greenery and sunlight through the myriad windows, and the subtle watercolour paintings on the walls.
Alexander Perry, born and bred in Castlemaine, has recently returned to his home town to open up his own smart eatery in the gracious old corner pub.
The Good Table. A great addition to Castlemaine!
I’ve heard a lot about Thaila Thai. It’s one of Brunswick’s most popular haunts and has a reputation for great food and great prices. The price is certainly right.
Perhaps the popularity is a Brunswick idiosyncrancy because the food, while tasty enough, wasn’t anything to rave about. Take the stirfry, the vegetables were chunky, roughly cut and in big size portions. Too big to cook through which is fine if you fancy raw veggies.
Let’s be fair – the food is fine, I just didn’t get the reason for the hype.
Thaila Thai is certainly busy, people queued the footpath for the take-away while the tables outside were packed. I’m not sure why the the take-away couldn’t be better organised as the crowd milling about was almost intimidating to diners outside.
I was there as part of a family gathering and we began to feel uncomfortable wondering if we were outstaying our welcome. There’s only so much room on the footpath as well and my chair was perilously close to the kerb where cars kept backing in to park.
I intend to return when it’s not so crowded although, with summer coming on and Melbourne people so enamoured of dining alfresco, that may prove a little difficult.