Orange F.O.O.D Week | Friday, April 25, 2008 |
The last weekend of the Orange F.O.O.D week and we strike rain headed out of Sydney on Friday night. We both have colds and Simon drives and we both cough and splutter through the Blue Mountains and Bathurst to Orange, a four hour drive away.
I had booked a unit at the Summer East apartments which describes itself as “Orange’s newest self contained executive studio apartment complex” true maybe when velour couches were fashionable. It is cheap and comfortable and we drop our bags and walk into town for dinner. The lights of the Canobolas Hotel beckon and we share a nice local Cabernet Sauvignon with our steaks before a coughing, sniffling night’s sleep.
With a kitchen but no food I awake at five o’clock and spend three hours drinking instant coffee and waiting for Simon to wake up. It is nine before we collect brochures from the visitor’s centre and scour Orange for a breakfast café. The first candidates just have coffee and cakes, wandering we find ourselves in a mall and I spot a man eating a fried breakfast. I stop but Simon is not keen and after some debate we head on, still hungry.
There is a food fair and community market on at Blayney about 30 km outside Orange and I drive us there in search of breakfast. There are lots of stalls selling crafts and we manage to buy some good looking home made pickles but still no breakfast and tiredness and cold are getting the better of me.
Driving back to Orange we admit defeat, buy cheese, bread and salad from the local Harris Farm Markets and a Pithrie local wine from liqourland for an early lunch.
The wind has been picking up all morning and by the time we retreat to bed with packets of cold medicine there are gales and lots of leaves blowing from the trees and we sleep until six.
Dinner is Monument wines and local venison at Selkirk’s restaurant and we dress and make our way there through piles of autumn leaves piled up in the footpath, although the wind has dropped and it is a clear night. It is all very good although we have to force our senses of taste and smell to make the most of it and we are soon back in bed for more coughing and sneezing.
Sunday breakfast of ruby grapefruit and bacon sandwiches sets us up and we are happier setting off to the Country Energy F.O.O.D Affair, a one-off market with lots of wine stalls (too early) and lots of stall selling burgers and pies, but we are full. We grab coffee and head out early on the Cowra road towards our next event, a hands-on cider making workshop.
There is a turn-off to Lake Canobolas so we take that and have a walk, admiring the autumn leaves on the trees, all very pleasant. Last night at dinner I had overheard some people saying how hard the cider place was to find, so we hurried off towards Borenore only to pass the cider gate more than 20 minutes before the start of our class. I had seen Borenore caves marked on the map so we detoured there to kill time. We had time for a quick look but not to walk through the caves and then we were back to Small Acres Cyder for a hands-on workshop on making cider.
After an introduction to their business and an explanation of the process it was all hands in for washing the apples and feeding them into an ancient machine like a large meat mincer. Once ground the apple pulp was packed in woven plastic cloth and pressed for the juice, and then off to the barrel for fermentation. We had a great time and bought a few bottles of cider to bring back with us, and some thoughts of home-brewing when we have some space.
Back to Orange and another tour around the market, but still no wine-tasting as we are driving, and just as well as it is a six hour drive, in rain of varying intensity and direction, to get home.
Labels: NSW food
