The Agrarian Kitchen is the creation of ex-Sydney chef, Rod, and his beautiful (French) wife, Sev.  Five years in the making, they have a five acre property with goats, pigs, bees, chooks and a truck load of edible goodness.

The Agrarian Kitchen - quality all the way

So, the scene is set with a leisurely 45 minute drive from Hobart on Tassie’s super efficient roads.  From about 3 minutes out of Hobart you’re in lovely countryside, quaint villages and other beautiful scenery.  Even after 2 weeks of driving around Tassie I still love a roll of hay with a backdrop of rolling green hills.

We arrive.  Coffee is made (and it’s a good one).  Rod’s made a cake.  And the first thing I notice is that everything they do is good quality and they have that perfectionistic attention to detail that I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.  The menu and apron are to keep, utensils to borrow for the day.

We started with a tour of the property.  I’ll say at this point that if you think this post is long because of all of the photographs, I was BRUTAL with my cull.  I had about 3 times this number on the shortlist.

Stop 1 was milking the goats… which involved the goats pulling Rod off his feet in their eagerness to get to the milking shed.  Not sure if you’ve ever milked a goat (or cow), but if you haven’t, the udder is incredibly soft and warm.  Goats milk for the ricotta – check.

The Race to the Milking Shed

Then we visited the pigs (saddleback, if you’re interested)… none of the photographs made the brutal shortlist.  Then the chooks (couldn’t resist this one of the rooster crowing)… eggs – check!

Who's a happy fella?

Because of Tassie’s harsh climate, they’ve put in a couple of ‘poly tunnels’ (which extends their growing season) and they’re positively overflowing which herbs and tomatoes and onions and we just filled our baskets with everything we needed for our cook off.

Poly tunnel... toward the white light

and a close up for those who just want more…

Inside the white light

As if that wasn’t enough, our wonka factory tour continued into the outside beds where we harvested potatoes, zuchini, tasted strawberries, blackberries, other berries, dug up carrots, picked peas, marvelled at artichokes etc etc. [that's about 14 photographs that didn't make the cut!]

More agrarian goodness

And finally, into the kitchen where we got our menu…

The Agrarian Experience - Menu

and started work led by chef, Rod.

Chef Rodney

Three hours later, et voila…

Goats milk ricotta ravioli with burnt butter, garlic, wild rocket and lovage

followed by…

Poached Robbins Island Wagyu Beef Short-Rib with chimichurri

accompanied by…

Grilled zuchini, peas & goats cheese with caramelised balsamic baby onions & mint

Unfortunately I didn’t get a photograph of the potato dish without the girls who made it in the image, so I’ve left that one out.  It was divine!

And for dessert…

Apricot and frangipane tartlets with cardamom ice-cream

All accompanied by beautiful Tassie wines (and sparkling rhubarb made with rhubarb from the garden).

If you have a bucket list, you even remotely like cooking, you like the countryside, you hanker for ‘the old days’ or you’ve never milked a goat and you’d like to try, I can highly recommend The Agrarian Kitchen.  It remains on my bucket list for another visit.

Cate xx

The rest of my “Highlights from Tassie” posts appear in no particular order.  They were all equally magical in their own way.

The one I’m sharing today is about my favourite work of art at MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania.  I am confident that it was not a curated part of the exhibition, but if art is something that provokes an emotional response, that makes you stop and ponder, that is visually grabbing and that inspires you, then this was, hands down, the highlight for me.

OK, so I’m not going to win any cinematography awards, the resolution is dodgy and whatever I was doing that makes the click, click sound is a little annoying, BUT these are my highlights and unfortunately that is the best that I can do to share with you what was a completely profound and beautiful moment, indeed one of the 4 most profound and beautiful moments in 2 ½ weeks in Tassie… which is only a reflection on my camera skills, not on the rest of my time in Tassie.

Hopefully it will inspire you to look for more bees in your day and watch with delight as they go on their merry way.

[BTW the building is also striking and stunning and the rest of the art was, I thought, variable but entertaining].  MONA request on their website that photographs of the art not be published without permission… so we’ll just stick to the building and my favourite work of art.  I really hope you enjoy it too.  There is something so delightful about seeing nature in all its glory and loving itself sick!  The garden was pumping like a mardi gras dance floor.  Flitting here and there.  Sequins and tiara’s.  Bum waggles.  A touch of pink.  And oh so beautiful to watch!

[No, I'm not outing myself, I love a gay man as much as all of us other single Sydney chicks too terrified of getting hurt!]

MONA Gallery, Tasmania

I only realised the irony of this photograph later... I wonder if he chose the t-shirt specifically?

Anyway, so, this little bee went to Tassie for 2½ whole weeks.  Amazing.  Yes 2½ whole weeks.  Tassie was good too.  Seriously good.  If you would like to see the full 2,000 photographs, feel free to pop into the Brookvale any time and ask me how my trip was.  Otherwise, I’ll restrict myself to 4 blog posts of the 4 major highlights.

The first was beekeeping in the World Heritage Listed leatherwood forests on the west coast of Tassie.  All the ingredients for a bucket list item:

• Riding in a semi trailor    √ (OK, that’s actually a square root symbol, and no I didn’t score, but it is the closest thing on wordpress to a tick)
• over 7 million bees     √
• Leatherwood honey     √
• Goosebump raising beautiful forests     √
• 4am start… not so much
• 7am coffee     √
• personal tour of the factory by family patriarch, Ian     √
• home cooked meals and packed lunch from family matriarch, Shirley     √

That just about sums it all up really.  I’m actually, for once, quite lost for words to describe the experience of beekeeping in the Tasmanian wilderness under the protective wing of the Stephens family (http://www.leatherwoodhoney.com.au/).  RJ Stephens have been beekeeping in Tassie since 1920 and thankfully that means they have bee sites in the pristine World Heritage Listed leatherwood forests on the West Coast.

Just in case you didn’t know, leatherwood trees ONLY grow in Tassie.  Nowhere else in the world.  And it is the most extra-ordinary honey.  It’s very floral.  In an unsubtle way.  Kind of like being punched in the mouth and nose with a bunch of flowers.  Leatherwood honey is to Tassie what champagne is to Champagne.  Parmagiano is to Italy.  Cher is to unitards.  Iconic… and completely unique.

But I digress.  Here are a few of the highlights of my beekeeping experience.

I got to ride in a big truck…

Bird’s eye view from the truck cabin”]

[Low flying

Leatherwood tree

or in close up

Leatherwood tree blossoms close up

Did I mention the big truck?…

My ride

The Stephens use “ideal” supers (which are half the height of a normal honey super) and have done so since 1920.  It is fairly unique to commercial beekeeping in Tassie, but makes a whole lot of sense when your extraction and packing worker bees are all women (just like in a hive).  An “ideal” super full of honey weighs in at around 20kgs.  On the truck we had 50 hives, each 9 supers high with around 150,000 bees per hive… over 7 million bees.

A couple of other interesting things – the 4am start was because we had a 5 hour drive into the forests from their base near Cradle Mountain and as bees like to start work at sunrise (and get grumpy if they can’t), it is imperative to get them unloaded as early as possible.  Secondly, you can see the green mesh on the back half of the truck… this covered the entire load for the whole trip so that the bees couldn’t fly off while we were driving as bees come back to the same spot they left.

Unloading "the girls"

Until a few years ago, all unloading was done by hand and hand-trolley… actually far less traumatic for the bees (and beekeepers) to do it this way.

Happy days... happy bees... let the foraging begin

You can see the leatherwoods in the background on the right hand side of the photograph.  Interestingly a leatherwood tree doesn’t flower for the first 75 odd years.  So that photograph of the tree in full bloom above is of a seriously old tree.

Happy bees... happy beekeeper

Time for a quick stroll into the enchanted forest [and a history lesson on the building of the rail link (under the road) which was all done by hand.

As another aside, Gunns are clear-felling just outside the World Heritage Listed area.

Forestry)”"]

The aftermath of Gunns (aided by Tasmanian [de

On a happier note, I’d love to introduce you to the matriarch and patriarch of the operation… Ian and Shirley.  [Ian is "over 85" and still goes out on one of the trucks every day... except for Saturday's when he goes to the races!]

Ian & Shirley Stephens

So, we’ve having a VIP Shopping Day.

Bring a copy of this blog post or our email newsletter and we’ll give you a further 10% off the factory prices (applies to everything except for all the goodies that are Buy 2 Get 1 Free because they’re already a big, fat bargain).   Factory prices are already a bargain anyway and you can also watch the candles being made on the day.

We’ll put on bubbly and keep the kettle on (I make a mean cup of tea).  You bring yourself (and a few friends if you like).

For our Sydney Eastern Suburbs friends, I promise you the drive won’t kill you and you can get great coffee at Baccino (Manly or Dee Why) or at Favourite Things (Dee Why).  Or you can try out Central Baking Depot on Grosvenor Lane in Neutral Bay as a mid-way stop off.  It is owned by the Bourke Street Bakery people and they have great coffee and even better breads and pastries!

Details:

Date:      Saturday, 10th December 2011

Time:     9am – 4pm

Venue:   Queen B’s Hive (click on the link to see a google map)
Unit 6, 84 Old Pittwater Road
BROOKVALE

Call:        If you get lost, call me on 0411 20 40 90

Looking forward to seeing you on the day.

Cate xx

Really, really special…

Made in Australia (actually on Sydney’s Northern Beaches), they are solid brass or nickel coated brass.  Each holder is individually made and hand finished to remove the sharp edges.  They are designed to hold our Bee Lights.

Each tree comes in its own gorgeous, made in Australia, fabulous quality, kraft board packaging.  Fabulous recycled as a paperclip holder, button holder or anything else small.

We have VERY limited quantities because they were extremely time consuming to make.  They are RRP $39.95 and we have 20% off for the next 24 hours only.

Christmas Tree Bee Light holders

Brass Christmas Tree Bee Light holder

Nickel plated Christmas Tree Bee Light holder

You know how sometimes if you stay in the moving watching all the credit’s, they put a good bit right at the end?… well, here’s the good bit!…

Here’s a little look at the product development cycle of our little Christmas Tree candle holder.  I must say I was a little worried when the first prototype came back!  I think we nailed it in the end though.

Christmas tree prototype 1... mmmm, no!

Christmas Prototype 2... cut a little deep

Christmas Tree Prototype 3... getting there, but too sharp

Christmas Tree Prototype 4... perfection!

Christmas Tree Candle holder... product development

If that’s not a fine candle holder, I don’t know what is!

Cate xx

A courier just walked in with a delivery from Peter’s of Kensington.  “No,” I said “not for me.  I haven’t ordered anything.”  Examination of the delivery docket showed clearly addressed to Cate Burton, Queen B…

Much tape ripping and general exclamation later, out come a beautiful Orrefors box… and inside?

Orrefors raspberry tealight holder

Orrefors Raspberry Tealight holder

How beautiful is that?… but still nothing to show who it was from.

So I called PofK.  A little digging later and they told me that the email address of the person who ordered was Cecily…

Now get this…

Cecily first ordered from Queen B online in September.  When she got the order she emailed to say thanks so much and gave me some lovely feedback on how her hayfever had improved since she’d been burning the candles.  Big tick for sending feedback.  Then last week Cecily decided to pop into the hive.  She wanted tealights for her new Orrefors raspberry votive holder.  I must have had a coffee that day because I was chatty and engaging and Cecily clearly walked out a happy customer.

Four days later… bingo.  My very own raspberry votive holder.  But I think what I love the most is that I am lucky enough to have people like Cecily in my life.  So, a big shout out to the Cecily’s in each of our lives.

If you have been the beneficiary of a random act of kindness, please share it on the blog.  If it gets lots of posts and votes and feedback, I’ll email you for the details of the giver and send them a little bee-created light.

And to the parking officer who gave me a ticket this morning, perhaps you would like to become a contributing member of society?  Perhaps you should think about spreading joy rather than misery?  I think that a ute should qualify as a truck (in fact I actually did).  And since when has 6am been a reasonable hour for a parking restriction to apply?  We didn’t need you for the first several millennia and we don’t need you now.  No, you aren’t doing society a favour.  No there would not be anarchy if you weren’t spreading your misery around all day.  We would cope just fine.

Cecily has a little extra Queen B light winging its way over to her today.  Yay.

Spread the love people… I was telling my neighbour about my random act of kindness day and she just brought me a cup of organic rosehip tea with a teaspoon of stringy bark honey.  What parking officer?  I’m on a honey high.

Cate xx

And now for the Queen B tealight lighting up said Orrefors Raspberry tealight holder

You can see all the candles we currently have available in our Christmas range on our website.

Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

Silence.

No “thank you for delivery 9 days early”.

No “thank you for having such a clever bee doing such gorgeous packaging”.

No “thank you for the pillars thrown in for free for her to burn on the day”.

Just silence.

So, yesterday (which was almost 2 weeks after we dropped everything at our busiest time of year to get her hampers over to her because she wasn’t organised) I popped her a quick email to see if she had received everything.

This morning I received her response.  “Yes, everything seemed fine. Thanks for following up.”

Pu-lease… “fine”?  Why not just slap me?  Fine?  I don’t ever recall waking up and hoping that today I would do a job that “seemed fine”.  I don’t recall, as I have pounded my head against the brick wall that is being an Australian manufacturer or making a natural product, thinking that it would be “fine”.

I even think fine is an insult to the weather.  Your fine may be different to my fine.  Is it sunny?  Cloudy?  Raining? Blowing a gale? Anything, but not fine.

Fine isn’t even a worth descriptor when someone asks you how you are!  More black and white.  Less shades of grey please.  Are you really good?  Depressed?  Having a great day?  A little under the weather?  Tired?  Hungover?  Fabulous?  Generally well?  All the better for seeing you?  Let’s make it real.

Please, if you are ever going to give me feedback, don’t tell me that what we did was fine.  You will likely get a response back like Trina did this morning.  While she may think that I got out of the wrong side of bed, hopefully she will get a little more in touch with her inner yogi and take the time to show a little gratitude in future.

THAT email wasn’t printed out and handed around the worker bees with a little pat on the back for a job amazingly well done.  So many hundreds of other are.

To the beautiful, conscious, thinking customers who give us feedback that is meritorious of being part of the english language… thank you.  We love you.  We love your feedback (be is gushing or helping us improve).

Over and out!

Uplifting blog post to follow!

Cate xx

I had a customer email me the other night to ask me if I had thought of doing Queen B ‘parties’ in people’s homes.  Thanks Karen.  To be honest, I have thought about it, and I’ve even done a few for friends, but so much of what we do is brought to life by being at the hive… doing the honey tasting… seeing how we clean the wax and the difference between what we buy (and what 100% of other beeswax candlemakers use) and the dirt we get out of it and the resultant clean wax.

I have (over)thought every aspect of Queen B.  From the wick (don’t mention the wick testing!), to the recycled elemental chlorine free cardboard packaging printed with soy ink by the only family owned ISO blah blah certified environmental printer (based in Sydney).  The natural, biodegradeable sinamay bags.  The beautiful new cardboard tube packaging we’re having made in Melbourne because I lost my cool with the 8th company that I called trying to source cardboard tube packaging only to be told that they weren’t interested in making them as small as we wanted them.  Every part of it has a story.  A lot of blood, sweat, tears, frustration, laughter, passion etc.  You get the picture.

Anyhoo (best said with a Scottish accent), so I emailed Karen back and she came back with the idea of me doing private parties at Queen B.  I host.  I’ll make a wine contribution and provide glasses.  You provide interested friends & colleagues.  You get to buy at factory prices.  No free tupperware for the organiser, just the knowledge that you made a difference both to your friends and to Queen B.  And we’ll like you, a lot, for a long time.  We may even send you something lovely and random just because we like you a lot.

I am happy to do it any night of the week, or on a Sunday.  Yes, men are welcome and in my experience, men love Queen B candles because they aren’t mauve and lavender scented (or any other feral scent for that matter).  We’re the Brut of candles.  Burning a Queen B candle has the Lynx effect.

If you are interested in coming down for your own private buying night at Queen B, please pop me an email.  Rather than put my email address here for the bots to find, you can go to our Contact Page and pop me an email that way or email queenb[at]queenb.com.au.

Cate xx

You can see all the candles we currently have available in our Christmas range on our website.

Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

It is a pity that our government don’t seem to understand this concept (versus the Chinese government that requires 80% local Chinese content in any government contract)… Oh dear I digress

As you would know, Queen B candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax (we support the regional communities of Bathurst, Queanbeyan and Gundagai by buying local beeswax even though it is the most expensive beeswax in the world).  We also choose to make our candles by hand rather than churning them out of a machine… and that means we pay lots of Australian wages (ouch for us, but good for the economy).

While I admit to being completely biased, I think that makes Queen B candles a beautiful GFC busting pressie.

Of course you can pay for us to make the candles for you, or why not save some money and make the candles yourself?  We lots of candle-making supplies on our website, or, if you don’t know what you’re doing, we have several candle-making kits that come with comprehensive instructions.

• Roll your own beeswax candles (12 per kit) and bundle them into pairs for a beautiful gift costing <$8 (per pair); or
• grab a 4-5 hour DIY tealight kit or a 8-9 hour DIY tealight kit and you can make your own tealight candles from $1 each… then bundle a few together in a brown paper bag with twine, et voila.  Another, beautiful, Australian made, non-toxic, GFC busting, sustainable Christmas gift.

Pouring beeswax tealights

Wicking beeswax tealights

You can see all the candles we currently have available in our Christmas range on our website.

Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

La Rochere dinnerware, tableware and glassware is made in the Haute Saone region in France where it has been made since 1475.  [and I thought 10 years of Queen B was exhausting!]  How fabulous is that?  We would be hard pressed to find many other global brands of the size of La Rochere that continue to manufacture in a developed country.

So, I love what the company stand for, I love their glassware (which is also practical in that it is dishwasher safe) and to top it all off, I love the boys who bring it in to Australia.  It is simply impossible to feel even one iota of glumness in their presence!

A few weeks ago a customer called me who had been on our Queen B website looking at the La Rochere glassware and she wanted 4 dozen of a particular glass.  So I gave her a discount and trundled up the road to get the glasses off the boys.  While I was there I asked them why they weren’t selling online themselves.  Turns out a mouse is an animal to them not a useful tool to navigate around a computer!  They suggested I do it for them instead.

et voila!  frenchglassware.com.au was born and in a superhuman feat, my clever web guy has managed to build the backend of the website in just 3 weeks and in that time I’ve run a design competition on Design Crowd for our new logo and spent over 100 hours sourcing and sizing photography and getting all my facts and figures correct.

Tonight we go live.  Yay.

If you are looking for beautiful French glassware, tableware and dinnerware – tumblers, wine glasses, water glasses, candleholders, plates, bowls and carafes & jugs – for living each day as if it were your last.  We have the largest selection of La Rochere designs of any retailer in Australia and we’re planning to move it in volume and pass on the savings.  I have yet to understand the impact of Australia Post shipping charges on the business model, but for now we’re doing everything at 10% off RRP.

La Rochere glassware is made at very high temperatures and is famous for its uniquely clear glass and hardiness.

I am VERY mindful that you’ve signed up to hear about Queen B, not French Glassware, so if you want to keep up with the French Glassware news, you can sign up for the newsletter on the home page.

If you come across any issues with the website, please let me know (much of it has been done through heavy eyelids after 16 hours at Queen B ).

Happy shopping

Cate xx

Of course, you can also see all the Queen B candles we currently have available in our Christmas range on the Queen B website.

Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.