“My Other Half and I had fun on our food stall. In the years when we left our children with babysitters, it was the nearest we got to a hot date.”
At last, the day has come, when I get to make my leisurely way round the stalls at Entally Estate’s annual Gardenfest as a punter, rather than a stallholder.
For the past six years, my husband and I have taken our food stall to Gardenfest and other calendar events, like the Tasmanian Craft Fair and Woolmer’s Festival of Roses. All delightful days, I saw them from behind the counter, as I handed over hundreds of free-range, farm-raised pork sausages and burgers. Sometimes I’d make a quick dash around after the lunchtime rush, but mostly I’d go home tired and empty-handed, with my hair smelling of fried onion.
Gardenfest was always my favourite event. It takes place in the grounds of Entally underneath 100-year-old oak trees. Food vendors were always lined up around picnic tables in the stable yard, a bucolic scene. On the lawns around the house were the horticulture stalls, selling everything from plants to decorative steel art. It’s attended by hardcore backyard artistes, and the vibe is always very “garden party”.
Last year, November’s Gardenfest was cancelled. Instead, on this last weekend of February, a special autumn Gardenfest is being held. And now that my husband and I have wound our farm business back and found more sensible things to do, I’m going. As a punter.
It’s straight to the food yard for me, always. I’m starving, courtesy of my new “fasting overnight to reclaim a svelte waistline” regime. I arrive at 11, the time at which I’m permitted to break my fast. And break it I do, with an Afghan bolani, a traditional flatbread stuffed with potato, coriander, leek and spring onion. It’s simple but savoury, and inexpensive. I wash it down with a doogh, a drink of yoghurt, water, vanilla and mint. Undeniably, this tastes like watered-down yoghurt, but it’s still pleasant, and makes for a different kind of morning cuppa.
Coffee vendors always have the longest queues at events like this. My Other Half and I used to have long conversations about why we ever thought slow-growing pigs were a good idea, and why we hadn’t just bought a coffee van? That said, we had fun on our food stall. In the years when we left our children with babysitters, it was the nearest we got to a hot date.
For me, it was entertaining to witness my husband’s idea of customer service, and hear the unpredictable things he would say to unsuspecting customers. “Wow, your hair is a really wild colour, isn’t it?” he said to one woman as she spooned Tasmanian chilli sauce onto her burger. Admittedly, her hair was blue.
Our friends Susan and Warren from Evandale Country Orchard are regulars at Gardenfest and by 11am they are already doing a roaring trade in their berry ice-cream. Susan and her sloe berries, which grow in the old hedgerows that lace their farm, featured in an episode of Gourmet Farmer, and Susan is a woman who knows a thing or two about farm food. We once left our car in their paddocks, conveniently near Launceston Airport, while we headed off to England to visit family. When we returned seven weeks later, she met us at the airport, revived us with strong tea, and packed us off home with a family-sized lasagna. Susan and Warren can be found selling their ice-cream and jams at Evandale Market most Sundays.
By the time I’ve circled the lovely old house at Entally, I’ve accumulated two heucheras and a kangaroo paw. I was bent on a Devonshire tea courtesy of the tea rooms but the tables and verandas are full of the clink of china and the murmur of lapsang lovers.
I head back to the stable yard. At Friends of Eliza, the eponymous Eliza is serving banh mi rolls (a Vietnamese sandwich) with garden fresh ingredients, and next door there are ollie bollens (a Dutch doughnut). The Devil’s Own Ice Creamery is pushing scoops of honey macadamia brittle over the counter into the plump hands of happy infants and parents alike.
For lunch, I opt for a bowl of handmade gnocchi, pillowy soft, with a pumpkin sauce and a scatter of piquant parmesan, made by a young couple specialising in Sicilian food. It’s rich and silky smooth.
I head home pleased with my day as a punter. I’m happy too, to have eaten courtesy of food vendors creating delicious dishes far from their kitchens, working instead from a food van or humble tent. It takes hard graft to make the food, set up, pack down and remain cheerful. I should know – after six years of my husband’s sausages and onion-odoured hair, I’m only too glad to give them my custom.
Gardenfest will be held again on November 13 and 14, 2021. For more information about Gardenfest and Entally Lodge, see entally.com.au.
Fiona Stocker is a Tamar Valley-based writer, editor and keeper of pigs. She has published the books A Place in the Stockyard (2016) and Apple Island Wife (2018). More of her writing can be seen at fionastocker.com.
