I have to say, the weather wasn't kind to me in Tasmania though the sun came out the last day or two of my stay, just to taunt me. In Hobart the weather was fickle to say the least. Bright sunshine one minute followed by a rain shower. The wind was pretty blustery as well and felt like it might have been coming straight from Antarctica!
I'd brought my film camera along with me and decided it was time to shoot some black and white film.
I parked the car in Battery Point and from Battery Point it's a short walk to Salamanca Place, the jewel in Hobart's crown.
I dropped into The Maker to see what was on display and noticed quite a crowd outside A Common Ground. On Saturday Salamanca Place is host to the Salamanca Markets.
I arrived pretty early just as the markets were setting up. Aren't these waratahs gorgeous?
As well as the usual suspects, there was some beautiful fresh produce on display.
I wanted to take handfuls of those baby leeks home with me.
If you keep walking you'll find yourself at St. David's Garden.
I'm always struck by the beauty of the grave stones embedded in the wall.
Do you remember me mentioning Lucaston Park Orchard?
Well this gentleman is from Lucaston Park and he was selling farm fresh apples and pears that day. What a face of character.
All that photography made me hungry so I left the markets with something to tide me over before making the drive up to Launceston. The cherry danish was a tasty as it looked.
I had one more place to visit before the drive north, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens.
I live in an apartment so whenever I get the chance, I love to walk through a beautifully planned garden.
The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens are such lovely peaceful gardens.
A lovely water feature.
Some black and white images for you.
The conservatory was filled with orchids the day I visited.
Fields of green.
A burst of colour for you.
If you're in need a food fix, here's my latest Delicious Bites column for decor8, a spiced pumpkin layer cake with maple cream cheese icing right in time for Thanksgiving.
I still have loads of images to share with you from my trip. Next time I'll take you along the Heritage Highway to Hadspen, my last stop in Tasmania.
See you all again,
Jillian
I thought you might be getting a bit sick of my travel posts so here's a little bit of baking for you. I spent a quiet weekend at home last weekend trying to shake off a cold. I needed to make something for a work morning tea so I decided to make some date squares.
I love date squares but they're so crumbly so I looked through my recipes trying to come up with a less crumbly version. I decided to make Ottolenghi's raspberry oat bars using my usual date square filling instead of raspberry jam.
The only trouble was, I couldn't taste a thing and I do sweeten the filling by taste. One of my colleagues brought huge bunches of these flowers into work. It was such a gloomy Sunday in Sydney I thought the flowers might brighten up the day.
The finished product. They looked okay and they're a little less crumbly than my normal version. I took them into work keeping my fingers crossed that they tasted okay. From all reports they were pretty good so here's the recipe for you.
Date and Nut Bars (adapted from Ottolenghi)
Base:
120g all purpose (plain) flour
¼ tsp baking powder
100g unsalted butter, diced
60g caster sugar
80g whole rolled oats
Filling:
1½ cups chopped dried dates
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
3 tsp grated lemon rind
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
⅓ cup water
Topping:
70g flaked almonds
70g walnuts, coarsely chopped
70g hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
70g brazil nuts, coarsely chopped
100g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
40ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
To make the filling, place all the ingredients in a small saucepan. Simmer over a medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the dates are soft. I usually find I need to add extra water as the date mixture cooks down - ⅔ cup extra in total. I don’t normally add any extra sugar but sweeten with brown sugar to taste. Allow the date filling to cool completely before using.
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Lightly grease a 20cm / 8in square tin and line it on all sides with parchment paper.
To make the base, in a large bowl whisk together the flour and baking powder. Add the butter and sugar and rub everything together with your fingers to form crumbs. Mix in the oats (this is easiest done with your hands). Spread the mixture over the bottom of the prepared tin and press down lightly. Bake for 20 minutes or until light brown. Remove from the oven, cool for a few minutes, and then spread evenly with the date filling.
To make the topping, place the nuts in a large bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then pour over the nuts and mix together. Pack the nut mixture evenly over the date filling and press down before returning to the oven for 30 minutes or until the top has turned golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack, then remove from the tin by pulling on the parchment paper, and cut into bars.
I cooled the bars in the fridge for 1 hour before cutting into bars.
Can you believe Christmas is around the corner? I was thinking about Christmas week, you know the one where I feature recipes sent to me by family, friends and readers. Instead of baking, I was wondering how you'd feel about sending me your favourite holiday sweet or candy recipe?
I used to make candy all the time when I was growing up and I recently bought a digital thermometer so I feel ready to tackle candy making again. However, apart from rum balls and white christmas, I can't think of any particularly Australian christmas sweets.
I'd love it if you could help me out, so please send some of your favourite or traditional Christmas candy recipes to me at info@jillianleiboff.com
Bye for now,
Jillian
Tasmania trip continued....Unable to do my walk to Wineglass Bay I found myself in the car heading towards Hobart. I hadn't been to Hobart in a long time and hadn't planned to visit for another day or so there I was without a map, a GPS or a plan of any kind. I kept driving in the general direction of Sandy Bay, until I found the motel where I'd booked a nights stay later that week. I explained my situation, asked for a map and directions towards MONA and the lovely receptionist gave me the best directions ever. Soon I was heading towards Glenorchy, where MONA is located.
MONA is the Museum of New and Old Art. Now in an ideal situation I would have caught the ferry to MONA to best appreciate the building but without internet access that couldn't be done so driving there was the next best thing. The MONA website actively discourages driving due to limited parking but as a resident of Sydney's Eastern suburbs where anything less than a 15 minute walk from the car is considered a close park, parking was a breeze. The walk up all those stairs from the ferry is far more challenging that the walk from the car park.
MONA is located next to the Moorilla Estate so you drive in past the vineyard then walk past the restaurant and the rooster on the way to the museum.
MONA is the sort of place you'd expect to find in Sydney or Melbourne. I'm not a modern art aficionado but visiting MONA is an experience and something you just have to do when you're in Hobart.
With a bit of time to kill before driving back to Buckland I drove over to Battery Point, a very scenic and historic part of Hobart where I stayed last time I was in Hobart.
I loved walking the streets taking photos during the sunny breaks in the weather.
I stopped at Jackman & McRoss for some lunch, a lamb and rosemary pie, before driving back to Buckland. Why Buckland, you may ask? Buckland, about an hour's drive from Hobart, is home to Brockley Estate, where I stayed for a few days.
After I booked I found another friend had stayed there late last year and rated Brockley as the highlight of her trip. As I drove in, I was greeted by some inquisitive sheep including this merino ram.
Brockley is run by Julian Roberts and his wife Chaxi, with Chaxi presiding in the kitchen.
After I arrived I took a walk around the property before exploring the house. I stayed in the marble bedchamber and I had the run of the house the first night, which is furnished in the style of a comfortable English country house. I enjoyed poached eggs for breakfast washed down with Lucaston Park apple juice and I was so well fed I couldn't eat another morsel until dinner that night.
I was lucky enough to stay there 2 nights and on the 2nd night I took part in one of Brockley's special dinners, which was the highlight of my trip.
Brockley would be a marvellous venue for a food photography workshop, so if that's something you like to do, I'm sure it could be arranged.
I have loads more images of Hobart to share with you but they can wait until next week. See you later in the week with some baking.
Bye for now,
Jillian
Normally I'm a very organised traveller with a planned agenda including a daily list of activities. On this occasion I was too busy leading up to my trip to prepare my daily plan. I was travelling with my laptop, so I thought I'd be able to arrange everything along the way. Then despite the best of plans, I found myself without internet access for a few consecutive days and my plans went to mush.
As a result I found myself more than once arriving at a shop or historic home to find the doors firmly shut. This didn't happen on one occasion but on 4 separate occasions! So that's how I found myself one Thursday outside the closed doors of Flywheel in New Norfolk, near Hobart. The shop looked so cute, I decided to rearrange my plans and return another day to photograph the shop. So what did I find inside?
A shop devoted to all things paper, housed in a lovely old shop on New Norfolk's main street complete with beautiful pressed metal ceilings.
The stock is beautifully displayed.
Out the back there's a beautiful old working press.
Inside, you'll find wrapping paper, string, gift cards and accessories. Many items are colourful.
Some are in more muted tones.
I think this image just needed to be in black and white.
In between the paper goods you'll find antiques. Here's a beautiful antique Jieldi desk lamp
A final image for you.
If you're in Hobart, make the trip out to New Norfolk so you can visit Flywheel at 42 High St New Norfolk. Just make sure you check they're open that day!
See you all next week,
Jillian
Last week was busy, so apologies for not posting any more of my Tasmanian images until now. After a few days in Launceston I made my way over to the east coast of Tasmania. Before I did, I paid a visit to Franklin House. Franklin House is an historic house surrounded by beautiful grounds tucked away in an industrial area of Launceston. I first visited Franklin House more than 20 years ago and in that time Launceston has encroached it's borders.
It's great that the grounds are fantastic because you're not able to take any photographs indoors. You'll have to take my word for it but the interior of the house is furnished in a style sympathetic to the period. Normally I'd buy a postcard of the interiors but the postcards were so old, faded and dusty I gave them a miss.
The gardens were equally as beautiful. Look how green the garden is, it's positively emerald in hue.
This beautiful climbing rose trailed over the old kitchen, filled with covetable antiques. I've always dreamed about owning a rose covered cottage.
From Franklin House it was back into the car and over to Longford to visit Brickendon. Brickendon is a world heritage listed site and it still operates as a working farm.
When you arrive at Brickendon, you're greeted by a chorus of poultry and lambs bleating hungrily for their breakfast.
The original farm buildings on the estate.
I watched this battle of dog vs cat play out to the end. Winner by a knockout - farm cat!
The granary and shearing shed at Brickendon.
It was shearing time in Tasmania. Have you ever seen a more magnificent specimen of a woolly sheep?
The blacksmith's shop.
The outlook from Brickendon Estate.
You can see the sky darkening in the Brickendon pictures so by the time I made it to Swansea the rain had begun and decided to hang around.
I took a walk around the headland near the golf course and spied loads and loads of bunnies. On my way back I saw an echidna and if you look closely in the final image, I managed to get a snap of him/her.
I first visited Tasmania and Swansea with my brothers so this was a little bit of a pilgrimage for me. I was a bit sad at the time and brothers being brothers, I was offered no sympathy. Instead as I gazed out gloomily to sea they renamed me 'melancholia'. I paid a visit to the bed and breakfast in which we'd stayed and took some photos of the little church across the road. I don't remember it being so charming.
Then it was time to find my lodgings, the lovely Wagner's Cottages on the road to Hobart, just outside Swansea. I stayed in the studio cottage with my own private garden and it was a nice haven from the wind and rain. Inside the studio, Belinda had left a loaf of freshly baked wholemeal bread. Freshly baked bread is one of my favourite things so I promptly devoured half the loaf topped with butter and Vegemite, a rare treat for me.
The studio was filled with the scent of home grown roses.
The following morning I'd planned to drive to Freycinet National Park to walk to Wineglass Bay but the rain was pretty heavy. In the end I abandoned those plans and decided to drive to Hobart. When I saw Spiky Bridge I had to find somewhere to turn around so I could stop and take a photo. It was bucketing down at this stage so I took these photos whilst simultaneously grappling with an umbrella.
I managed to squeeze in a shopshoot when I was in New Norfolk, so if I get time I'll post those images later in the week. I'm still waiting on some black and white film to return so I'll bring you some of those Hobart images next week.
See you all again soon,
Jillian