Spring in Stanley, Producers Lunch at Old Cable Station, Sunday 13th October 2013

The Cable Station in Stanley is a (relatively) historic old building in the midst of beautiful, picturesque surroundings. It was originally built in the 1930’s to house the headquarters of Tasmania’s first cable telephone link, which was laid beneath Bass Strait, with the mainland. Still in situ (in the cottage accommodation) is the original switchboard, complete with the 20 lines connecting to major exchanges of Hobart, Launceston, NW coast towns, Triabunna, Marrawah, and all capital cities of Australia (although obviously not functional nowadays!). It was in this gracious setting that we attended the Old Cable Station’s 24th Producers Lunch, a seasonal lunch, held, obviously, four times a year and featuring a degustation menu of seven courses highlighting the amazing array of products grown, caught and produced in that region, complete with many of the growers, producers and fishermen present to explain how they got into their trades, how they produce what they do and what the highs and lows in their respective businesses are.

The North West coast of Tasmania is a veritable treasure trove of small and large producers and growers and fishermen all capitalizing on the richness of the chocolate-red soil, the pristine deep waters of Bass Strait and the West Coast, and an amazing amount of originality of ideas and concepts embracing all-round sustainability. Whilst these people would probably spit at me if I dared to call them “greenies”,  I think that in their own unique way, they are in fact their own type of greenie!

For the first time in 23 lunches, the last Producers (winter) Lunch was cooked not by owner/chef Charlotte Brown as per previous custom, but a guest chef in the form of John T Bailey (ex owner/chef of The Banc at Swansea). This worked so well, they decided to continue this way, so this time it was the turn of brilliant Hobart-based chef Paul Foreman, currently Executive Chef for the Kalis Group (pub owners of Beltana, Black Buffalo, Cooleys, Kingston pub, Margate Tavern, Beachside Bicheno, Mornington, and others). Paul has a glittering history in the cheffing world of Hobart, and I for one can testify as to his unique skills in the kitchen, having been a Foreman groupie for over 20 years!

There were 50 guests present, and the large, round, heavy duty ex cable reels served as tables for 10 people, so there were 5 tables.

The menu was inspirational and capitalized on all the farming aspects of the northern part of the state brilliantly. Being a degustation, all courses were served with a matching wine from Port Sorell winery Ghost Rock, and a Spreyton cider served with second course.

We started with wood fired ciabatta (there is a wood fired oven in one corner of the restaurant) with churned butter, then progressed on to Spring Bay mussels with leek, saffron, fennel and cider, This was a magnificently delicate and fully flavoured soup served in a shot glass. As a preview to the meal to come, this was a ripper, but I was upset we were only given a shot glass of it, although I did manage to make up for it later in the evening when I wandered out to the kitchen at Cable Station and found half a vat of it still left, so what could a girl do but slurp down a decent sized soup bowl of it!

 

Mussel soup

Petuna ocean trout with white miso, shima wasabi, samphire and trout crackling followed. Everyone at our table ooh-ed and aah-ed at the taste and originality of thought of the trout crackling, which was indeed beautiful. Clearly it wasn’t common fare for some guests. Out of all the courses, this one was probably my least favourite, as I found the fish a bit dry, but not so much as to cause me to complain about this small criticism to anyone, although I did mention it to Paul later. The meal presented, I feel, the best of all the courses, with the samphire and crackling being the jewels of the dish.

 

Ocean trout

Next came the pulled and pressed Black Ridge Farm pork, sticky sauce, coriander congee and puffed rice. Sounds weird but it all truly worked well together.

 

Pork

Wood fired Black Ridge Farm spring lamb belly, green pea crunch, Jerusalem artichoke porridge and Meyer lemon sherbet followed the pork. This dish too reads like it might be a mish-mash of odd flavours but all was fine. I am a particular fan of both lamb and Jerusalem artichokes, so this dish pleased me no end. The artichokes had been blended with oats, so had an artichoke-y, porridge-y taste and consistency.

12 hour Robbins Island wagyu oyster blade, honey brown mushroom ‘marrow’ and new seasons pink eye potatoes was next up, and was a corker too. The meat cooked slowly to utter perfection, the mushroom marrow was innovative and delicious, and was well complemented by the pink eyes.

 

Oyster blade

Then came what I call the crazy course! Because it was tulip festival time up there, tulips are currently everywhere to be seen, from planter boxes in the main streets of towns, to huge fields striped with various hues of purple, white, red, yellow and orange tulips. Absolutely breathtaking to look at, so obviously Paul got a bit too much of the fresh country air and decided to incorporate the tulips in his menu, so we ate fresh tulip with Yondover (local cheese maker) goats cheese, nasturtium crumbs and Ghost Rock pinot noir treacle. It was actually surprisingly good, but took my palate by surprise, not knowing if it was a savoury or sweet course. It was in fact neither!

 

Tulip dish

We ended on the most stupendous high ever. Eucalyptus smoked white chocolate and Blue Hills honey manuka mousse, macadamia dacquoise, raspberry jelly and toffee popcorn. What else can I say but ‘orgasmic’! All components of this dish worked so well together and bought the whole meal home as the resounding success it truly was.

 

Honey mousse

The event was compered by Don, Charlotte’s partner (and, to be perfectly upfront, my ex-husband). He interspersed the courses with getting various producers, who were present eating lunch, to get up and speak about their products and give us some background information. As well, at every table were a number of local farmers and business people whose products maybe hadn’t been used in this particular meal but were still interested in participating in a lovely meal such as we partook of, and were more than happy to informally chat over the food and wine about their businesses. I sat next to Carolyn Nichols (Nichols Poultry, and Hill Farm products), and opposite Mr and Mrs Hardy who are the sources of the fabulous octopus which Don and Charlotte serve in their restaurant, and sell from their food van at various festivals like Taste of Tasmania, and Festivale.

It was so interesting to sit and chat with the people in a normal scenario, across the dinner table. There was no ego or attitude amongst everyone at our table, and all the producers who spoke publicly to us between courses were totally natural and relaxed, and not reading from a prepared script, or stammering, or hesitating. No bullshit amongst this group!

All in all, it was a most inspirational event, and one which I hope they hold again for summer, and which I see as obligatory to attend. I haven’t been to any such meal down south but then again I don’t generally socialize too much so maybe we have had events like this and I haven’t experienced them.

If you’re any kind of self-professed ‘foodie’ (I hate that term but can’t think of another descriptor) or someone who truly cares about the provenance of their food, this seasonal event is one not to be missed.

Kimbra Townend

Chef/Cookery Teacher
TAFE Drysdale, Hobart

Kimbra is one of those people in hospitality who I get inspired watching in action. She is one of those mega-passionate chefs who live and breathe food and cooking.

Her interest in food probably stems from her Mum, June, who was a stay-at-home mum always to be found either in the kitchen cooking up a batch of biscuits or other goodies, or in the garden taming nature. Kim used to help her mum with the afternoon baking after school, so got into the routine of producing home baked fare as a matter of course.

Cooking was obviously in the blood as her maternal grandfather trained as a cook in the navy, did a lot of catering and was a baker. In later life, he had the Geeveston Bakery and Taranna Bakery.

After she left school, Kimbra got a job at Banjo's in the city, serving behind the counter. While working there she took a specific interest in the sweeter bakery items, watching their production etc. She left Banjo's to go to work with Nonie at her Nonie's Restaurant in the Mall making all the cakes and desserts there. Following a lot of compliments and praise for her cooking from customers, she decided that getting an apprenticeship would be the way to go - so set about trying to get one! In Hobart, at that time, and being a female wanting to get into that more male-dominated field, she found it impossible to get an apprenticeship, especially given that the only hospitality experience she had was Banjo's (FOH) and Nonie's cooking cakes! She tried Dear Friends (Geoff Copping's ultra-upmarket restaurant at that time), Mures, and places like that, but no luck.

So - that left nothing for her but to follow her dream in Melbourne. She had been given the name and number of a chef at a hotel in Melbourne, so phoned, got offered an apprenticeship there, and relocated to Melbourne to work and train there.

She started at that hotel, which was the Mitcham Hotel, and worked there for about 18 months, catering amongst other things for children's birthday parties which the hotel specialized in. She worked under a brutal Italian chef who was a very domineering man, and wouldn't hesitate to throw a pot or pan at someone who was doing something he considered wrong! His proud boast was that he could bone out a whole pig in 6 minutes. He did this once a month. He would assemble the whole kitchen staff to observe, turn the timer on and bone the pig in the 6 minutes flat!

For her off-the-job training, she attended Box Hill TAFE on day release, one day a week. At that time in Melbourne, the two hospitality training schools were separated by whichever mode of off-the-job training the employer wished to use. If the Block release was your preferred option, your apprentice went to William Angliss; if you used the Day release option, then your apprentice attended Box Hill.

Kimbra realized that the best way to become a more rounded and experienced chef was to work at as many different places as she could, so she usually had one main job cooking, and picked up lots of other different casual jobs cooking in the evenings or on days off. For the 3rd year of her apprenticeship, her main job was at a restaurant that was open only during the days, so she was able to maintain the day job plus work other places on different nights. That day job was at a place called St Tropez, under a chef named Steve Cox, who she says was the chef who was the most passionate she ever worked with regarding his cooking. He gave her lots of freedom with the menu in the kitchen, and together they experimented with food: designing and playing with it. He supported her 100% and was a fantastic mentor for a young female apprentice chef.

She returned to Tassie when she'd finished her apprenticeship, and immediately got a casual job with Stuart Prosser at Prossers. As Stuart couldn't offer her enough hours, she then moved on to be the first female chef in the kitchens at Drunken Admiral with Craig and Leonie Godfrey. She says she felt the need to prove that she was the fastest and best while there, being female. Those were the days when crays, and seafood in general, was so cheap and abundant, and they were doing about 200 covers a night at Drunken. Heady days indeed! Craig was extremely generous with the staff, and a good boss.

She worked, as usual, a few other jobs as well, so was accumulating more and more different hospitality experiences as she went.

Kim then decided that she wanted to expand her experiences even more, so, as her brother had relocated to Canada, she decided to head there and look for work - so took off to Whistler in Canada. She had had the forethought to have a small amount of business cards (including her own specially designed chefs logo, stating that she was a qualified chef from Tasmania, prepared to work hard anywhere etc) made up before she left Hobart, so after she arrived in Whistler she went round looking at the restaurants she felt she'd like to work in, looked at their menus, then selected 6 she liked the look of, and left them 6 business cards - and that evening received 6 phone calls all offering her work!

She worked at some huge establishments: one place, Chateau Lake Louise, had 120 chefs working there and made everything on-site, including having its own butchery section which prepared its own pastrami, salami etc. She was a chef de partie there.

Some interesting statistics from Chateau Lake Louise include:

• 1,000,000 meals per year
• 2,000,000 cups of coffee = 18000 lbs of coffee
• 15000 eggs just for the pastry department
• 3000 lbs of flour a week
• 5000 covers per day
• 1000 covers per day just for staff
• 10000 baked potatoes per week
• $400 spent per day on wine for cooking alone
• $18,000 of food per day
• 1500 cows per year just for prime rib alone
• 126 chefs for summer
• 700 man hours per day staffing required
• Bakery/patisserie sections run 24 hours a day

She then decided yet again to gain more experience, so went to Switzerland, and picked up work there. She worked in Berne for 1 year, then backpacked round Spain, Morocco, Portugal then England. She then decided it was time to come home and put down roots, so back to Hobart she trotted.

She had earlier decided that ultimately, the way to go would be to teach cookery, so went to Drysdale and had an interview with Tom Ellis. As there wasn't anything available at the time, he advised her to look for work at Wrest Point, which she did, and worked there in the Functions section under Andrew McMillan, who now is Head Chef at Astor Grill.

She then picked up a job at Willson Training Centre, teaching cookery, then eventually a job came up at Drysdale which she took.

She has worked at Drysdale in jobs ranging from Teachers Assistant, Teacher to Acting Team Leader (which she held for 18 months).

She has now been at Drysdale for 12 years - such a long time for a 38 year old! She has many challenges, as we all do, but I have no hesitation in predicting that she will meet them all with her usual honesty, integrity and credibility.

She still maintains her passion for food and cooking, and for trying to instill this in the young apprentices in her charge. She says she feels it's a bit like the Jamie Oliver scenario - with his 'Fifteen' restaurant. You get the new, raw, young apprentices in, then slowly turn them into confident chefs, who, at third year, are totally at home with their knife skills and coping with the restaurant environment. They have a huge amount to deal with initially - with the realization of exactly what it takes to get a meal to the table, family pressures, moving out of home for the first time, relationship issues, working in a team environment etc. Every day is a challenge.

But - as Kimbra says she tells all her students - cheffing is a ticket to the world. Once you have that qualification - the world is your oyster - you can go anywhere, on your own terms. You can get a job with the pay you want or need. As long as you are flexible. The more experiences you have, the better.

Two quotes from Kimbra impressed me:

You're only as good as the chef you work for; and

You need to develop what you've learnt and combine it with passion and creativity
.

Garry and Ian from Rockerfellers

Ian Cox and Garry Dorrington (ex Rockerfellers) were in town recently (Sept 2008)and Rita took the opportunity to have breakfast at Dukkah and Pigeon Hole with them and reminisce about the good old days!

Ian and Garry could arguably be called the grandfathers of hospitality in Hobart, along with a few other stalwarts. Garry has been plying his trade (hospitality in Hobart) since late 1972, when he got a job in the new (at that time) Revolving Restaurant in Wrest Point. Prior to that he had been working as a tour guide for the National Trust at Runnymeade in New Town for a few years.

Ian, being a qualified Horticulturist, arrived in Hobart to take up a job with the Clarence Council as Manager of Parks and Reserves, which he did for 3 years. The period that Wrest Point opened the casino and Revolving Restaurant was a revolutionary time for fine dining in Hobart. If you were around at the time, you’ll remember how strict door staff were enforcing the dress code to get in the doors of WP. Not like today when any riff raff can walk in decked out in trackies and joggers!

In those days, denim was a total no-no, no matter how much it had cost you to buy. American comedian Jerry Lewis was an example of the relentless dress code policing at WP. Lewis was, at the time, the huge billing entertainment name in the Cabaret Room, which, by the way, encompassed a fully formal, white linen, sit-down meal prior to your entertainment. Mr Lewis was having a bit of a wander through the gambling area after his performance one evening, but as he was clothed in denim, albeit Armani which he’d paid more than the doorman’s annual wages for, he was thrown out!

They were just as strict about any male not wearing a tie and jacket. There was initial conjecture that if you didn’t have a suit on you couldn’t get in, but I think that was just gossip. They were horrendously strict though, and even though it was a real pain in the arse, at least everyone actually looked quite smart. Women in long dresses was common attire there. How often do you see that now? I myself am definitely not a formal dress person, but can appreciate others looking their very best in more formal attire.

Following the stint at the Revolving Restaurant, Garry left, along with David Siepen (who was a fellow staff member there) and they worked at Angelos, which was, at various times, Winter Garden, then Angelos, then Silvers Nightclub, then latterly Mona Lisa, in Liverpool Street.

The next phase of their lives was to involve their business partnership running some wonderful, historic venues round town. The groundbreaking 159 Davey (at that address) in 1976, after which followed (in 1978) the equally groundbreaking Beaujangles in Victoria Street. How popular was their Sunday brunch at Beaujangles? We’d never seen such food and so many people going out for brunch!

After Beaujangles came Sweethearts, which initially was sited near where Trafalgar Place now is. When that area was redeveloped, they moved to Bathurst Street, where Siam Gardens now is. Sweethearts was the place for fabulous desserts. Sweethearts existed from about 1979 till 1985.

That then heralded the start of Rockerfellers, originally above Knopwoods, where Syrup now is. They were at that site for 6 years then moved to their last address in the former Gibsons Mills, where Catch now is. They owned Rockerfellers for 19 years in all – an astronomic amount of time for hospitality in Hobart.

During the course of their Rockerfeller ownership, they started a few other ventures up as well – namely Cha Cha’s, on the site of Banjo’s in Elizabeth Street, and Sticky Fingers Ice Cream Parlour. Cha Cha’s rates up there as one of the best restaurant openings I attended because it had previously been another restaurant which was sold on to the boys along with all the alcohol. Naturally the cleaning out of the wine cellar and top shelf occurred at the opening, so there were many people staggering out of that particular restaurant opening very much the worse for wear! It operated for 3 years then closed down.

Sticky Fingers was another landmark venue. The boys established it with the ultimate idea being that it would fund their retirement. However, out of the blue and 3 years into its operation someone made them an offer for the business that was too great for them to refuse, so they sold it. It was a boutique ice cream parlour, with all the adventurous flavours made on the premises. As well as the customers coming onto the premises, every restaurant in town wanted to use their ice cream. They were run off their feet.

The introduction of the Fine Food awards at the Show saw them winning Gold for their beautiful ice cream. Stephanie Alexander also wanted her restaurant in Melbourne to be supplied with their well known Pink Grapefruit Sorbet.As fast as the ice cream was made, it was eaten, leading to a sign being made for the door to account for the sudden 2 hour closures they were often forced to have: “You’re licking it faster than we can make it”. It was a great money spinner for them.

They also fought for the right to be able to develop the Cornelian Bay Boat House site, and obviously won, ultimately. They retain their interest in the restaurant to this day, and should be justifiably proud of it.

I asked the boys if they could recall any really memorable incidents from their 19 years at Rockerfellers. A few came up. A dinner guest one evening was Rolf Harris. Rolf used the loo at one stage, and returned telling the boys that the sign on the toilet door was fading a bit, and asking them if they wanted him to touch it up with a texta! Naturally they agreed, so Rolf went to work and produced one of those famous Rolf Harris works of art, with the finished product looking great. The boys were rapt and decided that next day they’d get someone in to glass over the sign and thus preserve it for posterity. Unfortunately their mega-efficient cleaner started her early morning cleaning shift at 5.00 am next morning, and with a lot of hard scrubbing, managed to clean off the “scribblings” someone had done on the toilet door the night before, so she proudly announced to the boys when they arrived later that morning! Bugger!

A few bad nights also came to mind for the boys. One instance was at the old Rockers when one of their chefs was going upstairs with a large stockpot (with no lid) full of liquid toffee. As the pot had a handle missing, he was holding it with a tea towel wrapped round it. (The boys had previously told him to toss out said pan). He slipped on the stairs and managed to tip the whole pot of molten toffee all over himself. The blood-curdling scream of anguish from the chef in the stairwell was what alerted all to the disaster. He received extensive burns and his body immediately stiffened as the shock set in. Staff had to lift him onto the bar to lie in the prone position till medical help arrived. He had to have many skin grafts.

Another busy Friday night, packed to the rafters with customers, they had an American tourist dining alone who managed to drink 2 bottles of red along with a 3 course meal. At the end, looking decidedly green, he stood up to leave, and immediately vomited all over the restaurant, spraying most of the restaurant and customers! The restaurant had to be cleared; meals which were on their way out returned to the kitchen; in-coming customers turned away; everyone present offered free wine, drinks etc in order to placate them, and the whole disgusting mess cleaned up. Vomit had gone everywhere, even in women’s handbags, as people subsequently found out when they later delved into their handbags for wallet or car keys!

The boys say that hospitality in Hobart was kind to them and they loved their time here working in restaurants. They never looked round at what other people were doing, but did their own thing. Their hard and fast rule for success was that the business absolutely ALWAYS came first. The business was their priority at all times. Their whole life revolved round the business, and they were never deflected. They provided a lot of colour and personality to the dining out landscape of Hobart and I, for one, miss their constant presence immensely.

Kate Domeney, 2007

Kate Domeney – owner of training organisation, The Training Response, which specializes in Customer Service and corporate training.

I spoke to Kate after she had returned from a Customer Service conference in the US.

You’d think that in the US, customer service would be paramount in all scenarios, but Kate found, to her great surprise, that it actually wasn’t. The “have a nice day” customer service concept originated in the US, but….

She felt that service she received in the US varied and generally there seemed to be no sense of connection between the waitstaff and customer. They seemed to be bowed down by the sheer weight of numbers of people they have to service.

Kate felt that if you were, for instance, a Starbucks, and there are heaps of Starbucks and other coffee shops there, why wouldn’t you strive to be sensational? But they weren’t.

On the other hand, in New York City, Kate dined out at a little Italian restaurant, where she ordered a Chicken and Spinach salad. The chicken was flattened, breadcrumbed and fried, and served with a wedge of lemon and the spinach salad. She didn’t like the spinach salad so left it, and was fiddling with the food, when the owner, a typical Italian – gregarious, noisy, friendly – came over to her table, took her knife and fork out of her hands, mixed the salad, put it on top of the chicken, and when she tasted it, she says it was stunning. She didn’t know what the difference was, but she ate all of it. Naturally the owner was delighted with her reaction, and Kate loved the fact that the owner had connected enough with this one particular customer (her) to see her fiddling with the food, and fix the issue.

On the whole, she found the Americans difficult to get through to, and shallow. What you saw on the surface was fine, but beneath that – not much connection at all.

Generally when she’s conducting her customer service training, she tries to highlight the importance of attitude. For instance, you could say to your customer, “Have a nice day”, and find the customer suspects that you aren’t genuine in your wish for them to have a nice day! If you use the same words but the inflection in your voice actually reflects a genuine desire for them to have a really great day, starting with their time with you the waitperson, then that’s a different story. In other words, it’s HOW you say it.

I asked Kate did she think anyone could be taught customer service. She replied that she thought you can change the attitude of some people.

She said you can teach people the words to say, for instance, when answering the phone, but it’s what comes through to the person on the other end of the phone in people’s speech that matters. You need to work with that person. You need to explain to them that YOU think their tone of voice and inflections are important, because if they think it’s not important to answer the phone genuinely, it’s not going to happen, no matter what training they’ve had.

As Kate does a lot of corporate training, her radar is always on regarding customer service. Hence she is a great person to speak to if you find your business needs a good customer service injection. I have done training with Kate and can wholeheartedly endorse the credibility and effectiveness of her work.

You can contact Kate on:

kated@trainingresponse.com.au

Paul Foreman, 2007

Paul Foreman

Head Chef Marque IV Nov 2007

As I’ve declared often on my blog, I admit upfront to being Paul Foreman’s greatest fan. Hence you may well find a bit of bias creeping into my writing about Paul. For this I make no apology at all, but am merely being totally honest with you.

I have never worked for Paul, so have no idea what he’s like as a boss. I can only tell it as I find it, and that is that in all my many dealings with him over the past 15 years, I have consistently found him to be a really great bloke. A hard worker. A quietly passionate chef. One of the stalwarts.

Paul came originally from WA, and was in Year 10 here at Taroona High, when he did some work experience at the local Taroona Pub, where they ultimately offered him an apprenticeship. He did his first year there, then went on to complete the apprenticeship at the old Beards Restaurant, then Prossers.

He has worked in a variety of places over the years and has developed a fine reputation as a top chef. He is now being sought after by a few TV programs, such is his charismatic and professional delivery, not to mention talent in the kitchen.

Lifestyle channel are planning a program featuring 39 chefs around Australia, called “Signature Dishes”. Paul will be amongst the noted chefs cooking his Scallop and Red cooked Beef Brisket and lime leaf and lemon grass foam.

He has also been approached by Delicious magazine to do a Delicious Dinner at MIV in January 2008.

He has a link with Guilford Young College and has helped out there for the last six years teaching hospitality students a few tricks of the trade. It is from this source that he manages to find a few potential apprentices keen to give the world of cookery a go.

Paul has given me a simple recipe for Citrus Salted Ocean Trout with Panzanella Salad which he likes to cook at home..........

Paul Foreman’s Citrus Salted Ocean Trout with Panzanella Salad

Paul says ocean trout is his personal favourite fish. This is a dish he likes to cook up for himself and the family when he wants an easy but tasty meal at home.

Obviously you’d need to have done a few things prior to making this recipe – like having dried your citrus zest ahead of time, and made the bacon croutons.

For the citrus salt –

pink sea salt
dried zest of oranges, limes and lemons
bit of sugar if preferred

Pound all the above in a mortar and pestle, then dredge the skin of the (dried) trout in the salt mix.

Pop some ghee in a pan (Paul prefers to cook using ghee), then place the salted trout, skin side down, into the heated ghee in the pan. Cook.

For the panzanella salad -

bacon croutons - pana de casa, bacon, olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic into a moderate oven and baked, all roughly ripped and tossed together, like a bacon and bread crumble

Mix the above with cos leaves, anchovies, olives, poached egg, lemon juice and olive oil.

Paul generally, if the day allows, cooks the fish on the BBQ and serves it with fresh baby pinkeye potatoes, and obviously the salad. He likes this one as there is no stuffing around with it. It’s quick, easy and very flavoursome.

Monica Donnelly, 2007

Monica is one of those youthful older members of our community who has lived, and still lives, an exciting and productive life.

Mon was born in Hobart and raised at Wattle Grove near Cygnet during the depression years of the 1930’s. She moved to Hobart in the late 1940’s, married and had two children. She had a successful career in life assurance, has travelled widely and later in life has developed her writing skills with a bunch of friends, named aptly The Domain Writers. She has written and published a book of her reminiscences of life.

More to the point, she is renown for a few choice dishes which she cooks with that innate skill of all good country women.

Her prize dish, for me, is her Pavlova. I asked Mon if she would share with us the finer points of her skills as a master pav chef – and she has.

The recipe

6 – 8 egg whites
10 oz caster sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Beat the whites to stiff peaks
Add half the sugar, a tablespoon at a time (about every 30 seconds)
Add vinegar
Combine the remaining sugar with the cornflour
Fold into pav mix carefully
Pour onto a greased tray, piling it up in the centre

In a fan-forced oven, temp 150 degrees for 45 minutes, then 120 degrees for 60 mins. Then turn off the oven and leave pav in the oven overnight.

Mon’s warnings

Turn the oven on before you start to prepare the pav
Use electric beaters
Don’t overbeat
When the peaks are soft, start putting the sugar in
Halve the sugar before you start, rather than trying to guess if you’ve added half the sugar
Gently fold in the sugar/cornflour mix
Grease tray very well
Use foil then grease the foil
Put into the oven straight away
A normal oven will cook it at 150 degrees for 30 minutes, then 120 degrees for 45 minutes.

Postscript:

Unfortunately Monica passed away in December 2009. We who knew her are heartbroken at this loss, not only to her family and friends, but to the food landscape of Hobart.

David Wilson - owner of Tasmanian Hotel and Club Supplies

David Wilson

Owner Tasmanian Hotel and Club Supplies (THCS) Nov 2007

You might not instantly think of David as being someone with their finger on the pulse of the hospitality world in Tasmania but you’d be wrong in that opinion if you thought he didn’t.

As someone who has been in the industry for 27 years, he and his 18 staff daily have the most intimate of dealings with pretty well every kind of business where they have a need for catering and hospitality equipment. We’re talking nursing homes, hospitals, cafes, bars, restaurants, kiosks, school tuck shops, hotels, schools, motels, resorts, bottle shops, takeaways, community service organisations, tourism operations, catering companies, hospitality training organisations, fish punts. You name it, and you’ll find Hotel & Club have provided them with products over the years.

Following on from that, David obviously has seen many people and businesses come and go – some successfully, some most unsuccessfully.

When someone feels the overwhelming desire to start their own hospitality-related business or buy an existing one, or renovate their premises, they go into Hotel & Club and chat to one of the reps or staff there.

The minute they open their mouth, an experienced staff member will recognize pretty well what they’re dealing with – it could be one of the high flyers wanting to make a big ‘statementy’ splash and smack all their customers in the face with pizzazz the minute they enter the business, or it might be someone on an extremely limited budget trying to equip their business with minimal outlay. Or it might be someone anal who will only accept the colour ‘puce’ serviettes for their café tables, and makes a HUGE fuss over it, not prepared to compromise one iota, even though NO manufacturer makes a serviette of that tone and despite you having shown them the catalogues of every wholesaler in the country to prove same!

Ah yes – you really do get all types there, and as it’s another of those customer service industries, you really DO have to try hard to be as obliging and polite as you possibly can be, even though you really might want to smack your current customer over the head with the frying pan they’re being so critical of, or the champagne glass they don’t like the stem shape of!

(At this stage I actually must disclose that I worked at Hotel and Club part time for 3 years, so I have combined my actual experiences there with information David provided me with.)

David actually trained as a Quantity Surveyor, but decided to buy the THCS business when offered it 27 years ago. It originally only retailed loo paper and hand towels, comprised the one shop in Launceston and had a staff of 3 including David. They now have two sites – the original one in Brisbane Street, Launceston, and their Hobart store at the top of Liverpool Street, and carry a range of 4000 separate products. They will also order in anything your little heart desires if they don’t carry it in stock.

Most of David’s staff have been there for ages – Tammy (manager of the Hobart store) 12 years; Tony (head storeman Hobart) 17 years; Maria (office manager Launceston) 12 years; Bill (head storeman Launceston) 25 years; Heath (sales Launceston) 16 years; Lindsay (stores Launceston) 18 years; Kaye (sales Hobart) 14 years. (If those year numbers are a bit inaccurate, just blame David’s failing memory!)

David travels between both outlets each week, so luckily gets to eat out frequently at both ends of the state, which is great because he and his wife love eating out and trying different food. He also likes to support places who have dealt with the company – it’s a mutual thing – “you buy from us so the least we can do is to eat at your place”. I like that polite way of doing business.

The biggest disaster for THCS was over the pilot strike time (was that late 80’s?). Obviously it hit Tassie very hard, with many of our smaller hospitality and tourism venues going under due to lack of customers. Naturally the flow-on effect meant that THCS didn’t receive custom either. Also the Robert Hoskins saga at that time hit THCS hard. Hoskins at the time planned and bought up big for his upcoming venture which was going to be the Sheraton in Launceston. The pilots strike occurred, the venture didn’t go ahead and THCS was left out of pocket for a ginormous amount, along with others.

I asked David what the worst thing about the business was – he claims it’s the smell of chefs when they come into the shop after a lunch time cooking, and reek of stale fish and chip odour! He says sometimes the smell is so strong the staff need to spray air freshener when chef has left the shop!

The THCS staff go a long way to accommodate their customers needs and wants – way more so than many government officials I have dealt with over a number of years.

It is nothing, during the Taste of Tasmania, for a staff member to get a call on their mobile while they’re at a BBQ on the weekend, with an urgent request (or demand) for more takeaway cups or serviettes for someones stand at the Taste. The staff member ALWAYS hops to it; legs it into the city warehouse, gets the required stock, zooms down to the Taste, circles the dock area for ¼ hour looking for parking, then delivers it, often receiving no thanks or acknowledgement.

David’s favourite restaurants: for consistency – Fee & Me; for great casual food in Launceston – Don’t Wanna Cook; Star of Siam; Pickled Evenings. David eats out at least twice a week.

I also asked David what differences he has noticed over the years in hospitality. He says that the attitudes are now much more different to the way they used to be. He says it’s not rough like it was years ago, and that the people are easier to get on with now – but maybe it’s because he too has mellowed!

Also he says that following some large financial losses they suffered as a result of bad debtors in the past, they have tightened up on their procedures meaning that those serial abusers of credit are now made way more accountable than previously.
A source of frustration for anyone in business is where another business owner declares themselves bankrupt, thus absolving themselves from any debt repayment to their suppliers, then starts up another business soon after, possibly within weeks of the previous business crashing.

David says the industry is now restructured too. There are more outlets owned by fewer people. For instance, we have Woollies who now own about 5 or 6 hotels; Coles with all their bottle shops; Federal with their properties – maybe 14?

This is good and bad. It’s bad in that if you fall out with one person (for whatever reason), you can loose lots of business.

David has enjoyed his time in the hospitality supply business but feels the time is coming when he needs to step down and leave the game to the next generation. Neither of his two grown up children are interested in continuing his great work with the company – so that leaves only one option for David. But whoever ultimately buys that business gets a really solid business with great staff, and industry credibility.