The land of sun and surf, the place where Aussies like to go when they retire and, if you ask me, that is not such a bad idea. Why not move to a place where it is warm most of the year and fairly hot the rest of the time?
Queensland is a state of opposites: you have your tourist holiday destinations such as the Gold Coast and in contrast, the hinterland where you will find some wonderful and sometimes slightly crazy people. I’m talking about Alla and Michael Ward from Mount Tamborine Distillery — Alla is the distiller (a lovely quiet and dedicated producer) and Michael is probably the maddest person I have ever had the pleasure of having on the show! I am not sure how much of what we shot when we visited made it on to the show, as neither of us really made much sense, but we certainly had a ball shooting there. Oh, and it was not the wonderful spirits that they make that caused the silliness — Michael doesn’t drink! Check out the gado gado recipe and order some of his banana liqueur before you make it. Then there was Katrina who specialises in growing chillies. She conducted a chilli-tasting session with me and mistakenly gave me one of the hottest chillies first, believing it was the mildest, so of course I ate the whole thing and very quickly lost the ability to talk.
Further up you have the Sunshine Coast which is a little more laid-back yet a bit more sophisticated. I cooked emu rice-paper rolls at the fabulous Spirit House Restaurant in Yandina, spanner crab and squid-ink pasta at the famous Berardo’s Restaurant in Noosa, and went for an early morning surf with the world champion long-board rider, Josh Constable. In Queensland, it’s all about good food and lifestyle and these are two of the reasons I never tire of touring around this great state.
Travelling further north, you get to Townsville, where I shot two episodes. I cooked up some beautiful farmed banana prawns for Robbie, the opera-singing sugar cane farmer and his extended family — all fifty of them! It must be Queensland’s famous hospitality that saw me do another cook-up for the good folk at Wambiana Station. Michael, the station owner, put me to work doing some cattle rustling and then his wife Michelle put me to work cooking up beef ribs and beer damper for the family — again all fifty of them! The recipe is in the following pages but it is only for two so give it a go.
Finally we got to Cairns, which is a really great place but flaming hot in summer, which, of course, was when we visited. I had my first taste of crocodile and one had its first taste of me; thankfully though it was only a few weeks old but by golly they have sharp teeth! I cooked my veal roulades for veal farmers Bruce and Elizabeth which they politely claimed to love and I went pineapple picking for a very exhausting and sweaty hour — those guys work hard!
List of Recipes