Barossa valley – Josephine Moon

I have pretty much written a love letter to Maggie Beer in my new novel, The Jam Queens. My love for Maggie began so long ago I can’t remember when it started but I’d like tell you a little about me and Maggie.

I have watched Maggie’s wonderful television show The Cook and the Chef. I’ve collected and read her books, sinking into her stories about her early years on the orchard and with then pheasant farm with her kids and husband Colin. Just about the only episode I can remember of MasterChef was the one which she was a guest competitor. A friend once offered me a last-minute ticket to see Maggie at the State Library of Queensland, just before Christmas time, and I cancelled everything to get to the sold-out event to hear her speak. She was, as you’d expect, warm, funny, engaging and generous. (I bought one of her books there and stood in line for an age to ask her to sign it but as it was a sold-out event and the line snaked around the terrace I didn’t have time to lavish her with my adoration… probably to her good fortune.) Twice a year every year, my friend Kate and I go on writing retreat together and have often daydreamed and drooled about making the next one an adventure down to Maggie’s Orchard House to cook in her drool-worthy kitchen. My husband works in aged care and we enthusiastically snapped up her book Maggie’s Recipe for Life and encouraged everyone in the company to go buy it too. Maggie’s foodie values–love, family, sharing, sustainability, celebration, honouring the source of our food, and growing food–are values I share and find their way into my books as I write.

You get the drift, right? I’m a big fan.

I suppose it was inevitable that when I decided to set a book in the Barossa Valley, Maggie’s spirit would find its way into my story. One of the driving plot points of the book became the annual jam competition at the Royal Adelaide Show. As my main character Aggie’s family is full of jam queens, they have created a system where one queen may nominate herself to enter in a given year while the others stand aside. But this year, there is an extra incentive to win, with the triumphant jam queen invited to cook with Maggie on her television show. Perhaps then, the rules could be broken just for this year? After all, it is Maggie Beer they’re talking about! Who could resist the opportunity to spend time with her? While it might be Aggie’s turn to enter, her mother Valeria is torn. Maggie is her idol. How could she not enter?

I travelled to the Barossa in 2017 with my husband and then five-year-old son. (The flowers in the valley were well and truly out. Aren’t they gorgeous?) Of course, at the top of my list of things to do was to head to Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop, which we did three times in less than a week. The lake, the olive trees, the grounds, the shop… it’s all gorgeous. (And she has the best gluten free bread rolls I’ve ever had! And I’ve been gluten free for 30 years, so I’ve eaten a lot of them.) I confess I was hoping to simply bump into Maggie by good fortune, but the closest I got was seeing her disappear out through the kitchen door, and it was all I could do to stop myself leaping over the counter to chase her down… which, of course, probably wouldn’t have ended too well for me, so it’s lucky I haven’t been a high jumper since primary school.

This is all just to say, ‘Thanks, Maggie, for nurturing the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of food lovers throughout the country, including mine’ and inspiring a a plot line through my new book. I hope you love it.

Love

Jo x

Research is the bedrock of my novels. It is the place where I find inspiration, joy, meaning, characters and story. I am never happier than when I am in the free-flowing state of inquiry, following my curiosity and passion as it emerges, taking a right-angled turn here, or a big swooping deep dive there.

Many people help me along the way and never want anything in return (though I do always gift them something in gratitude); people who are passionate about what they do are more often than not, I have found, utterly delighted to share their knowledge.

I’ve collected a raft of people of late who have helped me with my future stories. So let me take a moment to thank them and perhaps you will find some inspiration here, or if you are able, you might be able to support their wonderful business.

Firstly, I visited Noosa’s only coffee farm, Noosa Black, in Kin Kin and was treated to a lovely luncheon on the deck overlooking Traecy and Peter Hinner’s plantation. They were so generous with their time, knowledge and passion. Their single origin coffee is sold through local IGA supermarkets on the Sunshine Coast and through their online store. The really beautiful thing about Noosa Black is how community powered the business is. Traecy and Peter’s vision from the start was ‘local’, and everything they’ve done, from planting the trees to roasting the beans has been driven by local labour, and then it is sold locally too, so the food miles are short! It is a vision that means all the dollars associated with the farm circulate within a small geography, which is really very cool.

Next, I got to travel to the beautiful Barossa Valley in South Australia and visit Trevallie Orchard’s fruit farm, with my expert guide Sheralee Menz, who knows the business and history of the farm from the ground up. The fruit orchard is a piece of living history, still growing heritage varieties of apples and with a magnificent fig tree over one hundred years old! To my greatest disappointment, I had a total camera fail and only got this one lovely shot of a fruit tree flowers (a pear, I think?). You can buy Trevallie’s beautiful fruit from their online store or in Farmland stores or at the truly magnificent Barossa Farmers Markets each Saturday morning in Angaston. (We had the BEST breakfast there!)

And most recently, I spent time at Padre coffee in Noosa, first with owner and coffee expert, Marinus Jansen, who shared so much information with me I truly couldn’t write fast enough. One of the most fabulous things about Padre is their ‘open door’ policy of information. They train people who want to be roasters and hold regular cupping sessions. Soon after my time with Marinus came to an end, I joined coffee roaster Vanessa Joachim for cupping, and then she invited me back the next day to watch a roasting session. And then barista, Kayla Byles, talked me through siphon brews, batch brews and V60s! Needless to say I was pretty high on coffee when I left!

Other than that, I have been chatting to some special people who are helping me with my next book; but I can’t quite tell you about them just yet. However, I want to say again how grateful I am that people are so willing to share their experiences and knowledge with me, which eventually comes out in my writing.

One of the things readers tell me frequently is how much they’ve loved learning about food in the books I write and behind it all are the people on the ground, with their hands in the dirt, literally and symbolically.

From me to you, thank you!!