Grazing

This blog started out as a vehicle for sharing photos and family milestones with members of the family (and interested friends) who live interstate and OS. Despite this there have been an awful lot of purplefig posts devoted to food we have eaten. The food obsession obviously runs in the family with young Joel's Ottolenghi inspired cheesecake creating a Facebook sensation in the last day or so too.

Anyway we made our way out of wintry Canberra today, to the wintry village of Gundaroo, for a fireside lunch at Grazing, in the historic old (1865) Royal Hotel building.

We were lucky enough to be seated in our own dining room, with our own fire to tend.

Today's lunch was one of the regular get togethers we four "Education ladies" arrange for us and our partners to celebrate our work and family successes, travel adventures and shared enjoyment of conversation, food and wine.

Grazing's food was very memorable...largely sourced from around the region and all the wines from Canberra District wineries, which are becoming increasingly well regarded around the country. I ordered the char grilled kangaroo loin with parsnip mash and Tuscan black kale and savoury rhubarb and rosemary compote. It was a beautiful dish and perfectly cooked.

My friend Jeni took this picture of us so we could be reminded of my dessert of baked orange and pomegranate molasses cake with vanilla custard, honey flavoured pear and black cumin ice cream. It was truly as wonderful as it sounds.

It was around a 40km drive home from Gundaroo. On the way we were rewarded with some brief glimpses of sunlight lighting the pale blue winter sky just visible above the layers of grey swathed clouds. In this light the paddocks were all monotone shades of frost bitten ash, olive and grey. It really looks like winter on the Limestone Plains.