try Margaret's
coconut jam
tart
My husband and I had for quite some
time, discussed the possibility of retiring to a "nice little place
in the country". Brian pointed out the advertisement for "Lacewood",
so we wandered down to McLaren Flat to see what was on offer, and fell
in love with it. The house was a dream, there were fruit trees and gardens,
chooks in the yard, and it was autumn, so everything looked just wonderful.
We were hooked, and that very evening contacted the agent, with an offer.
In a couple of days we had signed an offer and it had been accepted,
pre-auction. We took possession on the 29th April 1994 and then had
difficulty marketing our property at Hallett Cove until September '94.
However we were able to move some of our possessions gradually and we
traveled down here on weekends, bringing picnic lunches, and enjoying
our own little piece of countryside. "Lacewood" is situated
amongst tall gum trees and native shrubs, wound around by a winter creek
and two water-dams, and embraced on all sides by vineyards, as this
district is one of the premier wine growing regions of Australia. It
was just like we had our little bit of heaven.
In the spring we delighted in the
blossom-laden trees, and began planning our fruit sales to take place
in summer. However no one had explained about the birds and their needs,
or about the seasons when there is not much fruit produced. We found
in summer, that having been told that there was $2000.00 to be made
from roadside sales, that we were lucky to take $300.00. This was a
bitter disappointment, as we were counting on this money to pay the
cost of watering the orchard, and for some labour that we had to hire.
We did however have quite a bit of fruit that was not of a good standard
for roadside sales (because of bird damage), but good enough for jam
and sauce. I began using recycled bottles and jars, of which I had plenty,
and making up jams, sauces and preserves. All of this work was done
in our kitchen of course. As we were selling fruit on the roadside,
I placed some of the items on the stall and they began to sell too,
so I was feeling very pleased with myself.
I soon found however that I had
such a collection of manufactured products, that I didn't know what
do with, so it was suggested to me that I could try to sell the produce
to the local wineries. My first customer was the McLaren Vale Olive
Groves. They were so encouraging that I began to experiment with different
flavours and styles, so that over the course of the next few years we
made a wide range of products, not all of them being good sellers at
all, but certainly an interesting lot. When the need for large quantities
of printed labels became apparent, we had to bite the bullet and have
them all done at a tremendous expense, but the rewards followed, with
more and more orders.
The Lacewood staff had grown from
one person, Helen, who lives nearby, to four local women who worked
part-time. When Helen first came to work with us we were still cooking
in the house, but using a gas burner and a small production kitchen
set up in the area that was intended for the casual dining. We had a
stainless steel bench and a table or two, with bags of sugar stored
underneath, and boxes of spices etc. stored under the pool table. Brian
protested about the aroma of some of the more pungent spices and it
was obviously time to move from the house into a kitchen that was purpose-built.
For a time we did the packing on a table in the middle of Brian's study,
so I am sure that he was pleased to see the end of that, not to mention
the boxes of finished product which took up space at one end of the
room.
In 1997 we decided to build a production
kitchen in the shed, and after about five months, the work was finally
done so that we could commence production in our new home. It was wonderful.
We had the cooking down one end of the room, with the packing on a table
at the other end. This space was soon outgrown so that we had the other
half of the shed lined to become the packing area, and subsequently
two more bays of the shed enclosed for cool-room and storage. We have
almost outgrown this too, but manage to utilise the room by moving pallets
in and out with a pallet jack.
In the year 2001, our range of products
were well established, and we were exporting to the U.K. The customers
Harvey Nichols are in Knightsbridge, and from my information are a very
prestigious company, so we felt very privileged indeed to be supplying
them. One of the interesting developments was the growth of our Dukkah
sales. Dukkah is an Egyptian food, made from nuts, seeds and spices.
The blends can vary widely, but we used almond, macadamia, peanut, coconut,
sesame seeds, coriander and cumin, with the variations of lemon myrtle,
mountain pepper and paprika to give a little extra kick.
At the end of 2000 we were presented
with an award for Innovation in the Food Industry, and were one of three
finalists in this category to be presented with our award in the Ballroom
of the Hilton in Adelaide. This was a very prestigious occasion and
we were extremely proud to be chosen. The main focus of the award was
our adaptation of recipes to incorporate Australian Native ingredients,
such as Lemon Myrtle, Mountain Pepper, Bush Tomatoes and Muntries.
Try Margaret's coconut
jam tart
Read about her granmother who started it all: grandma's
pasties then try the pasties
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