Monthly Archives: April 2011
Recipe: Wild honeyed ANZAC biscuits
Yes, it’s that time of the year again – ANZAC bikkie time. Like chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, it just doesn’t seem right to eat these biscuits at any other time of the year.
I’ve been baking ANZAC biscuits since Mrs Thorpe’s home economics class when I was just 12 years old.
This recipe is based on the ANZAC biscuit recipe from that wise tome “Cookery The Australian Way”.
I’ve substituted the golden syrup in this recipe for wild honey – mainly because I picked up a small jar of roadside honey on the way back from the Wolgan Valley last week and wanted to try it out. It makes a delicious alternative to golden syrup. I also threw in two tablespoons of shredded coconut at the oats, sugar and flour stage for added crunch.
The Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa – 24 hours in bush paradise
It’s a dark and stormy Saturday morning. Thick grey clouds have rolled in over Sydney and the rain is bucketing down. With the rest of the city still sensibly tucked up in bed we set off on a 3 hour drive north-west over the Blue Mountains, past Lithgow to the mystical Wolgan Valley.
It’s here – in a little-known grazing plain surrounded by towering red-faced sandstone cliffs – that Emirates has built its first Australian eco-resort – the Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa.
The Wolgan Valley? As in the fictional setting for the television series A Country Practice? No, that’s Wandin Valley.
The Wolgan Valley has been a well-guarded secret known only to the local Wurundjeri people, a few graziers and some serious bush-walkers.
As you drive past the power station at Wallerawang and the local colliery, and make your way down the steep cutting fringed with ancient ferns, this extraordinary valley is the last thing you expect to see.
It’s simply breathtaking. A seemingly geologically impossible creation. 300 metre high fire-red cliffs rising from the lush valley floor.
The scouts from Emirates apparently stumbled across this location during a helicopter recce. How else would they have known this ancient jewel was here?
But there’s still a hairy challenge ahead for us …
After the heavy rain, the 14km pot-holed dirt road leading to the resort gives our stationwagon quite a work-out…
We slip and slide as the red mud flies in all directions. The signs say drive with care. No choice but to.
We leave our car at the main gates and are picked up with our luggage and taken to the main homestead for check-in and a quick orientation.
With a location as jaw-dropping as the Wolgan Valley, the resort doesn’t try to compete. In fact the selection of architecture and building materials were all designed to have minimum impact on the local environment and to blend in to the natural colours and bushscapes.
A quick lunch of beef burger and mushroom pie in the country kitchen dining room …..
and then it’s off to explore our stix for the weekend.
Each heritage lodge room has its own heated swimming pool,
gas fireplace and four poster bed
spacious shower with a glass sky roof
satellite TV and a surround sound DVD/CD and iPod system
no mobile reception but every building has free WiFi
The selection of linens and fabrics, rugs and furniture take their influences from African safaris, New Zealand ski lodges and exclusive London clubs.
Nightly rates start from $1,560.00 (meals and alcohol included) so Wolgan is a celebration destination for most of us. We want to stay indoors to revel in this luxury but the landscape beckons.
The first stop is the property’s original homestead which has been diligently retained and restored and features in a guided tour.
The valley was a sacred Aboriginal meeting place and hunting ground and then used by pastoralists for cattle grazing.
An original hut.
The kitchen gardens are used to augment the resort’s menu with fresh seasonal produce.
Kitchen herb garden
Parsley
Lemon grass
Very life-like scarecrow
Strawberry patch

Rhubarb
Several rivers including the Carne Creek have kept the Wolgan Valley well-watered for centuries. Tests have shown the Carne Creek still has some of the purest drinking water in the state.
It’s what keeps the Valley so rich with wildlife.
A four wheel drive tour at dusk gives us a glimpse of the inquisitive locals..
walleroos
kangaroos.
Sadly no sightings today of the famous three white albino walleroos who live in the valley.
Then it’s on to dinner served in the cathedral-style dining hall in the main homestead.
A Pedro Ximenez sorbet palate cleanser
And a chocolate molten pudding for dessert.
This is very serious food – well worth a trip in its own right.
All courses are accompanied by an inclusive selection of local wines. My highlight – a delicious sauvignon blanc from Printhie wines in Orange.
We stagger back to our lodge well-sated. The night is inky black.The air is fresh and crisp. We’ve only been in the valley for a few hours but it already feels like days. This must be what relaxing feels like.
The next morning the clouds have gone and the cliffs are shimmering in the bright light.
Breakfast is generous, and filling.
We are leaving after lunch. Just enough time to squeeze in some treatments at the Timeless Spa Centre.
A Barbour facial for me and a Swedish massage for Mark.
The barbour facial uses products from the German babour skin care range and a cool crystal stick which my therapist uses to gently press down on my face’s pressure points. Wonderful sensation and deeply invigorating.
Mark emerges from his massage in a floating cloud of deep bliss.
Edible Balcony – Curly-Leafed Purple Basil
The National Sustainable Food Summit, April 2011, Melbourne
Mr Cribb is a bespeckled man in his late 60s with striped braces. His appearance does not prepare us for his energetic and impassioned presentation. His PowerPoint slides are filled with armaggedon-like scenarios.
– a world population of 7-8 billion hungry mouths to feed
– no fossil fuels to drive industry
– half the planet’s fresh water gone
– scarce and costly fertilisers
– more climate uncertainty
– and more conflicts and wars causing food refugees to flood into
Australia and other wealthy nations
NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM
Julian Cribb wasn’t all doom and gloom. He said Australia would lead the new eco-agricultural revolution needed to meet this famine by sharing our technology and innovation with other countries. He said Australian farmers excelled at low-input farming and needed to be supported financially and socially. He wants us to teach our children a new respect for food and how it is produced. We also need to reshape our diets.
- We only eat 200 of the world’s 23,000 edible plants
- In Australia we eat 5 of the 6000 edible varieties available
Professor Robin Batterham – the chemical engineering whiz – is on the podium now. He’s like a walking brain – all head and hardly any body. His hair is wiry and wild. He is the archetypal professor. He reminds us that ….
” even the most educated person after 7 days without food becomes a raging savage”
It’s been a whole two hours since my last meal and I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Professor Batterham wants us to focus on waste. He says we produce enough food for no-one to go hungry but last year 1 in 20 Australians didn’t have enough to eat. He blames distribution systems and our throwaway society.
He quotes an example from the British food industry where 3 billion cartons of unopened yoghurt are thrown away each year because they are past their use-by-date. He wants to see ‘use by’ replaced with ‘best by’.
