Good Food & Wine Show, Sydney 2016 - Part 1

The Good Food & Wine Show in Sydney is my annual pilgrimage. It’s the one major event of the year that I look forward to and enjoy every single minute and this year I backed it up with a two day visit!

Arriving early on Friday the lines are already long but we are in the doors before we know it and purchasing our tasting glass and lanyard.　 As an FYI this year, if you were a Dan Murphy’s member you could ‘jump’ the line and enter in a separate line quicker and also receive a free wine glass (which I did on the Saturday). Thanks Dan Murphy’s.

Ready.....set....go..

Where to begin?　 Wine of course!

First stop is Bunnamagoo Wines.

 

 

Our second stop of the day was a absolute delight. Sampling the awesome Hartshorn sheep whey vodka and vanilla liqueur. 　How?　 By developing a technique to use the by-product (from making cheese from sheep milk (whey) from the family business at Grand Ewe cheese and distilling this to create a clean, crisp vodka is, in my opinion, brilliant.　

The bottles are gorgeous too being lovingly hand painted!　 The vanilla liquor is like vanilla icecream in a bottle!!!

So much to try and see.

We make our way through Barossa wines before landing at Bruny Island Cheese Co.　 I am a fan of the stinky cheeses and newly paired beers. Here we have The Saint and the Otto.  The Saint is [   and the Otto is a fresh cheese wrapped in prosciutto.

The Saint (left) and Otto (right) - Bruny Island Cheese Co.

Bruny Island Beer Co is brewing some awesome Farm Ale and dark beers too, which pair really well with stinky cheeses.
 

 

I’m excited about beer and cheese together (and there is more on that during Saturdays visit later).
I’m sensing more beer this year.　 Although I am not a big beer drinker (occasionally drinking beer when it’s hot), today I sampled some beers that may just change my mind a little.　

Over at the Australian Brewery I was surprised by a nice Pilsner (which is my Partner and Dad’s beer of choice) and their Ice Ice Baby (pilsner on ice on tap).

We may have spent quite some time over at Tamburlaine chatting with Mark Davidson.  This is one of my favourite wineries and love their GSM and their stickies and Muscat!

Tasmanian artisan brewery Moo Brew have a range of brews to suit your palette.  I really am liking the darker ales today!

 

Want something wintery and warming? Maxwell’s Liqueur Mead is heavenly and a bottle is  purchased!

Doc Adams is next.　 A friend has raved about their wine (specifically the 2013 GSM) and I have been wanting to try it before I purchased a case.　 Sadly, they are not sampling it at the show.　 I made some enquiries about purchasing a bottle before committing…and I left my details.　

 

A drool worthy moment with Miguel as he cooks a huge pan of paella.　 Cannot help myself and purchase a paella pan and a take home paella kit!  Pity he didn't come with the purchase! 

 

We stop by Sud Polaire for some gin….  I am not a gin person (it makes me cry) so I don't enjoy it as much as other spirits and I find tonic to be to bitter and grrrr....

 

So I  am surprised by this tonic!  I like it.

 

Whiskey and Porteen over at Melbourne Martini is sipped (and bring the Boy back the next day).

 

Cheers from us girls as we sip our way around the festival.

James Squire is offering a selection of their beers and we can not help ourselves, we have to sample all of them.　 I am a big fan of the Summer Swindler.　 The Jack of Spades Porter is palatable too!

The Wog with the Grog have a selection of European grappas and citrus based liqueurs.

I think it is clear what the Biltong Man makes and the mango and chilli one is a winner!

Over at Mr Black I fall in love with their cold drip coffee liqueur.　 I don’t think I have ever tasted something so delicious made from/with coffee.

Oregano bakery offering up some awesome scrolls.

 

Always stop by Stone's.　 I noticed the Gold is no longer available but there are a few other options.　 The reserve is quite nice.

Okay so there was some food involved (at some point!). hahaha

Jack Dillion’s was there again this year and offering some tasty BBQ sauces along with their lovely smoked garlic.　

The lovely people at Brixton gave me a bottle of their Jerk sauce and their BBQ rum sauce is awesome!!! (purchased a bottled the next day).　 Looking forward to making some jerk chicken with this.

 

 

The Smelly Cheese Club offer a range of just that (stinky) cheese from all around the world!　  So as per normal I purchase their selection. (in fact we had the le Delice de Cremiers on the weekend and loved this soft cheese)

 

We discovered Nick’s Jerky at the Deni Ute Muster last year and are fans of the dried stuff.

 

The aptly name Sticky Balsamic　 stall is a must.　 A lovely range of balsamic vinegars including a gorgeous pear balsamic.　 Miss B purchased the box set!!!!

 

Murray River Pork are taste testing their pork products and I arrive just in time for a slab of pork belly with crunchy crackling.　 Yum!

 

Tamar valley truffles is always a nice stop…one day I will purchase you lovelies!

 

There is lots of cider tasting this year too.  Elk cider is a traditional Swedish cider and they make a  nice apple cider!  I find pear to sweet.

 

Over at Cheese Ally, there is a lot to explore and enjoyed meeting Mrs Cheese from Hunter Belle Cheese.  Say Fromage!!!!  the cheese range is good too and purchase a few of the range including caramelised onion and hyme and cranberry and pistachio.  Their beer cheese is divine!

Our first day was awesome at the show and there were plenty of products purchased (lucky I took my Nanna trolley).

Making soft cheese @ The Cheesemaking Workshop

I love cheese.  Soft cheese, hard cheese, fresh cheese, aged cheese and stinky cheese.  I love it all. 

So it was only natural that I was keen to learn how to make cheese.  I have wanted to do a workshop for sometime and I was very spoilt by a very dear friend for my 40th birthday who was generous with a gift certificate for The Cheesemaking Workshop soft cheese making course. 

Lyndall (who is the founder)  along with Sue and David run workshops all over NSW.   They offer both the soft cheese workshop and the advanced cheese making (which incorporates harder cheeses along with blue vein) as well as other workshops and corporate courses.

With eager and excited anticipation I headed over to Northbridge on Saturday to partake in a day of all things CHEESE!

I was greeted by Sally, who is vibrant, friendly and welcoming and will be our facilitator for the day.  There are nine of us today (the workshop can accommodate 12), aprons are passed around and I teamed up with a lovely married couple and after introductions we become the 3 R's for the day.  There are three groups of three.

We are all eyeing off the cheese platter on offer and it takes awhile before we all start to taste.  The platter consists of camembert, feta, labne and a blue camembert, along with some natural yogurt and mascarpone - all of which we are learning to make today except for the blue - that's just a teaser for the advanced course!

 

The feta is amazingly salty and sharp and I'm liking it.  Hope mine turns out like that!

 

 

We are given a breakdown of all our equipment and keeping things separate to stop cross- contamination of the cheeses.

 

Our workspace for the day.  The polystyrene boxes have a big 10ltr container which is our cheese vat and helps keep the dairy environment nice and warm and cozy, perfect conditions for making good cheese.

 

 

We start with making ricotta.  We gently heat our milk to the required temperature, add in white vinegar and watch as it starts to come together (which is called a raft).  This sits for 20 minutes or so as the curds and whey separate.

 

Ricotta turns out to be the most easiest cheese to make and something I know I will be making at home!

We then move onto preparing our milk for both the camembert and feta. They are mixed in a vat in the polystyrene box (to keep it warm).

While that is doing it's thing we stop for morning tea. Tea and coffee in hand we sit down to the large 12 seater dining table and munch on these lovely mascarpone and ricotta tarts.  Creamy but not very sweet and they delicious.

It's not long and we are back in the kitchen.  We are now ready to hoop our ricotta (see I'm learning the lingo) and our 4 litres of milk gives us two decent size hoops.  Once the whey is drained away it's ready to eat (roughly 20-30 minutes).  Our ricotta is going to be used in our lunch today.

Over to the benches to tend our feta.  Here we are cutting the feta into cubes before we start to 'turn' the curd.  It's starting to set to a pannacotta consistency.  When we start to turn it it will allow the whey to separate more.

 

We are then given a demo on how to make natural yogurt and then to hang the yogurt to make labne.  I get to do the hanging for this one.  Labne is sometimes called a yogurt cheese.  It's middle eastern in origin and is delicious rolled in dukkah or fresh herbs.  I suggest rolling in sumac too, which gives it a lemony taste.

 

 

 

We learn about the different cultures used in the cheeses and get to taste the products at each step to learn the textures and tastes of what the end result should be.  There is no waste once you learn what to do with it.  Even the by product whey can be used (if you want to).

 

As an extra element, Sally shows us how to make a quick pullapart bread with feta and olives and homemade butter (and buttermilk) which will be served with our lunch.  So easy!

 

After turning our curd and draining the whey we hoop our camembert.  This fills four hoops and I think they are going to be huge wheels.  But I can confirm that today (2 days after hooping) the cheese has drained and is more dense and compacted (about 1/3 of the original size).

 

We break for lunch and the spread is fresh and inviting.  Even though we have been picking on cheese and crackers all morning I am still hungry.  Alexia, who is in the kitchen today, has cooked up a lovely lunch of baked camambert with caramelised onions, a salad with feta, spinach and ricotta tarts with a capsicum sauce, the pullapart bread and the freshly made butter.

 

 

  

  

 

It was delicious and light and refreshing!  The communal lunch is full of chatter and laughter as we all get to know each other.  Feeling revived and refreshed with food we move onto the afternoon session, we are shown how to make the rich and divine mascarpone (which doesn't have as much cream in it as one thinks!).

 

We invert our camembert and you can see just how much whey has already come away from the cheese and the cheese is shrinking.

 

 

 

It's time to do one more turn on our feta before hooping it.  Our team ended up with loads of curd from our batch and made 4 very full hoops (and then some).

 

This will show exactly how much it shrinks over time (see photos below).

 

 

By the end of the afternoon we are armed with cheese recipes, enough knowledge to make the cheese and we are all eager to go home and experiment.  After purchasing kits and cultures we say our thank yous and goodbyes and head off ....

 

The soft cheese making workshop was a fantastic experience and I learnt quiet alot about cheese and what effort goes into to making it. The camembert and feta are definitely the most time consuming cheeses to make in this course, however in the grand scheme of things it's not really labour intensive. Just needs the TLC to get it to the eating stage!

I hear good things about the advanced cheese making course where you learn to make cheddar, blue vein, havarti and mozzarella to name a few. Now I just need to choose a date to do this one too! I'm hooked....but perhaps I need to perfect some of the soft cheeses first.....

 

I can highly recommend this day to anybody that is interested in making cheese!  I know my head is spinning with possiblities.

 

Thanks Cheesemaking Workshop for a great experience.

 

Three days later..........

 

.....this is what my cheese is starting to look like.  The top cheese is camembert and the bottom is my feta.  On Sunday morning I gave my camembert its brine bath with added mold spores and is now drying out in it's cool esky (in my garage) for the next 8-10 days.  Hopefully little white hairs will start to grow on it and then it will be ready in a few weeks.

 

 

Yes I had to colour code my cheeses so they wouldn't get mixed up.  They look exactly the same.  So to ensure the right step was done to the right cheese I had to have a system.  In future it will be easy as I will only do one type of cheese at a time.

 

The bottom cheese - the feta - is ready for it's briny bath this morning and will be ready to eat tomorrow.  I can't wait to try this.