Dinner With MAGGIE BEER.

On Friday night in Brisbane I was lucky enough to attend a cooking class and a dinner with the one and only larger than life doyen of Australian food. She is a lovely lady very generous with her information and so jolly. She has been in 4 states in 3 days, in Sydney judging “Master Chef” they are down to the final 3, but didn’t give any thing away, then to Canberra to make a “Constitution ” cake, then back to Adelaide, so she would have been a bit tired. But it didn’t show, her enthusiasm was contagious. She loves all food  produced locally -to her the Barossa. So it enforces the belief that I have in the food produced in my SE Qld and Tamborine region. I have been able to source fantastic Organic chicken from Inglewood and especially bred lamb from a regional co-op run by families. These places take extra care of their animals and it does taste so much better. We haven’t quite got the amount of wineries as the Barossa but I am more than satisfied with the SE Qld quality. A few tips I picked up are where to source Australian grown pepper corns, capers and vanilla beans. Watch out for them being used in my classes.