Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i Country Style

AS 2024 begins, I’m reflecting on the year that was. We’ve seen some changes here at Country Style – the most obvious and heartwrenching for us all was our Country Squire, Rob Ingram, putting down his pen (it sounds much better than keyboard) due to ill health after writing for us for 34 years. Given Rob is irreplaceable, there will be no more Country Squire column. Instead, we’re searching for a new columnist for the back page. I’d love to hear from you with suggestions of writers and a new name for this column. Email: austcountrystyle@aremedia.com.au Until we find a worthy scribe, we’re paying tribute to Rob and his many years of service to laughter, in the form of a ‘Best of’ Country Squire series. Speaking of columnists, this year,…

SOMETIMES YOU NEED to try new things to find what you’re truly meant to do in life. This was the case for Glen Rundell, who spent years as a plumber, then took on a government job, before finding his way to chair-making. “That’s when I realised I wasn’t happy unless I was being creative and using my hands,” he says. Now, the owner of Rundell & Rundell is one of the country’s best at crafting traditional Windsor chairs. “I can make a lot of things, but I choose not to. I don’t call myself a furniture-maker; I’m a chair-maker,” says Glen, 52, good-humouredly. Why so specific? Well, there’s a special challenge in making chairs. “A chest of drawers, a bookshelf or any other wooden furniture has fairly basic requirements, but…

FIONA MACDONALD’S EARLY YEARS on a remote sheep property outside Blackall in Central Western Queensland couldn’t have been more different from the career that made her name. In the 1970s and ’80s, she shot to fame as a television presenter on shows such as It’s A Knockout. When she was five, Fiona’s family sold their property and moved into Blackall. “In drought, the f lat country around Blackall is a carpet of beige and brown cut by dried creek lines, but after rain it springs to life and everything turns magically green,” she says. “I remember Blackall was much greener than the surrounding country because the town used bores to access water from the Great Artesian Basin. The thermal water smells like sulphur – a bit like rotten eggs –…

IN THE HISTORIC VILLAGE of Clunes, in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, one of its oldest homes, The Grange, has been lovingly restored by husband-and-wife team Jared Dixon and Renee Eirth. “Jared was born and raised on the Sunshine Coast and moved to Clunes 14 years ago to be closer to family, and I joined him six years ago, after our paths crossed in 2016,” says Renee. “We’d always dreamed of owning an old homestead and were approached by a woman who lived here at The Grange, who wanted to sell her home to trusted locals.” Built in 1887 by the Agnew family – on the traditional lands of the Widjabul/Wia-bal people – the three-bedroom home was standing strong, with its gorgeous 130-year-old floorboards, French doors and…

ON A FARM, everything breaks all at once. If your windmill is going to break, it will happen in the same week that the ride-on lawnmower dies, the farm ute is declared unfixable by the mechanic, and the roller door on the hay shed suddenly breaks – stuck open, right before the first major rain in three months. This was a very expensive week. At times like these, I retreat into the farmhouse where I’ve created an indoor jungle, because indoor plants are, in my opinion, absolutely excellent therapy. They are my antidote to chaos and a beautiful stress reliever. And if they’re broken, I can fix them. One of my best tricks is being able to bring indoor plants back from the brink of death; a skill my friends…

SURELY, there is no simpler joy than homemade ice cream? Make that fruity homemade ice cream that requires neither a fiddly custard base, nor an expensive ice-cream churner, and you’re in sheer delight territory. A favourite childhood treat, ice-cream sandwiches are messy joy creators, and more joy is always to be encouraged in my book. They are also the perfect sweet for this time of year, when the days are long and lazy (or I am), and the weather is hot. This strawberry ice cream is a breeze to make, using a base of fluffy cream and sweetened condensed milk, rippled with a quick strawberry compote. Serve the ice cream sandwiched between two buttery lemon shortbread biscuits for a childlike-thrill, or scoop into a glass and eat the biscuits on…

Tess Groenint-woud Founder of Studio GIW “Gladstone has lots of opportunities available if you’re willing to have a go.” MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE $395,000 MEDIAN RENTAL PRICE $470 per week BY THE NUMBERS “The Gladstone region offers a range of properties, from leafy suburban streets to beachfront and harbourside abodes,” says Alicia Williams, director and principal of Locations Estate Agents. “Entry-level homes start from around $350,000, while townhouses can be purchased for as little as $190,000. Some of our homes can fetch $1 million-plus and feature coastal views or acreages. Gladstone remains an affordable town with excellent employment prospects and convenient location.” OPPORTUNITY CALLS The Port of Gladstone is the world’s fifth-largest coal export facility and the state’s largest multi-commodity port, with a throughput of over 120 million tonnes per annum.…

WATER WONDER Elegance meets durability in the Zip HydroTap G5 BCSHA Celsius Plus All-in-One Tap, which features a clever touchscreen. harveynorman.com.au TRAVEL IN STYLE Attractive and sturdy, Lake Leather’s Plenty Backpack and Roland Travel Bag will easily hold all your summer holiday essentials. lakeleather.com.au FASHION WITH FLAIR Zephyr’s contemporary and classic designs, including the Mabel Smock Dress and Soft Top Linen Pants, flatter women of every age. zephyrwares.com BEST DRESSED Family-owned Australian brand Miss Rose Sister Violet creates exquisite, classical garments in sustainable fabrics. missrosesisterviolet.com.au FRENCH FANCY Petits Tours guides Trish and Dave offer a maximum of six guests an intimate look at French history, culture, scenery and cuisine. petitstoursenfrance.co.nz TAKE A SEAT Ideal for the verandah or as casual indoor seating, the Florida range is skilfully woven from durable…

Editor KYLIE IMESON Creative director SARAH FARAGO Deputy editor HANNAH JAMES Queensland contributing editor CLAIRE MACTAGGART Art director BERNHARD SCHMITZ Senior designer KATRINA MASTROFILIPPO Junior designer SAFFRON SYLVESTER Stylist KATE LINCOLN Features writer REBECCA HOOTON Junior writer LISA EASEY Contributing writer SUMAIYA CHOWDHURE Chief copy editor, Homes Group PETER GRIFFITHS Senior copy editor GRETA DUMBLETON Copy editors SUE RAMSEY, GINA FLAXMAN, STEPHANIE HOPE Editorial coordinator ANNA CAMPBELL ADVERTISING AND PRODUCTION Commercial brand manager MICHELLE O’HANLON Advertising production manager KATE ORSBORN Director of sales –NSW, VIC, SA KAREN HOLMES Head of direct sales – VIC, SA, WA WILL JAMISON Queensland head of sales JUDY TAYLOR Creative director CLARE CATT Senior event manager CATE GAZAL Head of Directories REBECCA WHITE Data and distribution manager JOSHUA BLANSHARD Production controller KARA STEAD Advertising production controller DOMINIC ROY All advertising inquiries ADVERTISING@AREMEDIA.COM.AU MARKETING AND CIRCULATION Marketing director LOUISE CANKETT Marketing manager JESS TAYLOR Circulation and insights manager NICOLE…

IAM BR ACED FOR THE sag of January. It’s a new thing for me. Usually, January is one of my favourite months. The real beginning of the year (February) seems far away and the weeks feel fat and lazy with the promise of no routines aside from the cricket playing in the background, weeks at the shack, and a toppling pile of books I’ve saved up to read. Usually, I have a child or two bouncing between the shack and house, working on the farm in between their busy social lives. But this year will be different. One child has a full-time job and is touching down for Christmas before heading straight back to her world of heat and emergency snakebites in north-west NSW, while the other, our youngest, has…

“It’s nuts how global our audience is. But it’s not surprising, because once they discover Globetrotting, they keep coming back.” KATE PILCHER HAS RIDDEN HORSES on six continents and had a life of adventure, but says there’s nothing like coming home. For the owner of Globetrotting – a business that organises boutique horseriding holidays – home is 12 hectares of greenery sandwiched between Nambour and Mapleton in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland. The property, fondly called Tin Kettle after Tin Kettle Creek, which splits it in two, is also home to seven horses whose paddock sits on a hill overlooking the ocean. The family’s “gentle giant” Clifford, a cattle dog-cross-German shorthaired pointer, also runs around the area. “It’s really life-affirming,” says Kate, 42, who recently returned from a riding trip in…

“The slower pace here was a big drawcard for me, personally – and the produce, professionally.” DROP THE NAME Cabarita Beach to anyone and you might conjure an image of windswept headlands overlooking an expansive Pacific surf break, a sleepy surf town and soft grass, or a beach setting framed by twisted pandanus trees. More than likely, though, they’ll picture breezeway brick walls, navy and white striped sunlounges, and some of the most delicious food in Northern NSW. Such is the popularity of Halcyon House – and its award-winning restaurant Paper Daisy – whose beautifully restored motel bones have rendered Cabarita Beach a sought-after destination since 2015. For chef Jason Barratt, who’s helmed the Paper Daisy kitchen since 2019, moving from bustling Melbourne to this part of the world took…

EVERY HOME COOK has a go-to cake recipe and for Helen Campbell (nee May), it was Jessie’s Sand Cake, a simple butter cake with a hint of vanilla. “She was a great cook and had recipes she trotted out a lot – particularly Jessie’s Sand Cake because she could do it in her sleep,” says Helen’s daughter, Margot Shannon, who lives near Yass in NSW and owns popular shop Merchant Campbell. Born in 1932, Helen grew up in Chatswood and was very much a Sydney girl, attending the Memorial College of Household Arts and Science in Kirribilli to learn “all the things a young bride would need to know in the 1950s”. Helen met Robert in Jindabyne when they were 12 and 13 respectively, but they didn’t marry until later,…

SAVING BUNJI Brinkley Davies, Affirm Press, $34.99 A copy of Brinkley Davies’ memoir in every Australian home would make our future brighter. She’s an eco warrior. An expert. Picture the scene: a lonely country road, a dead kangaroo. Davies pulls over. In the pouch is a tiny joey. Davies knows what to do. There are scores of differing milk formulas for joeys, only one the right one. Davies was able to identify Bunji’s species and age and locate a supply of Wombaroo Kangaroo Milk Replacer 0.4 – in time. Not cheap. The story of how Bunji shaped Davies’ complex destiny is packed with details tender and jolting. It’s illegal to return a hand-reared roo to the wild. When Bunji was fully grown, Davies founded Two Songs Sanctuary, a place where…

SO, IT’S COME TO THIS! When our electricity authority informed us we’d have no power on the Friday, we declared it a day off and headed over to Orange to treat ourselves to a taste of the good life. When we returned, the new pole and transformer still hadn’t been erected because it had rained, and water and electricity are poor bedfellows. Then a letter arrived advising the power would be out again on Friday and Monday. We read it moments before being plunged into darkness for the rest of the day. It was Wednesday. Was the Wednesday outage instead of Friday or instead of Monday? No telling, but Friday’s the day the garden lady comes and I’ll have to prepare something for lunch. “It’s okay, I’ve brought some soup…

SHARED JOYS I love reading the letters on Your Page. When someone mentions a particular story they loved, I think, “Oh, I remember that one”, or if it’s one I missed, I’ll go back and find that issue and read it. I enjoyed Mary Refalo’s letter in the recent Christmas issue. I love how she used to make cakes to last the week as a teen with her sister. Growing up, I always enjoyed cooking with my sister, and now I’m baking cakes with my daughter to go in her lunch box for the week. Thanks for a wonderful magazine each month. Michelle Bondesan, Bentleigh East, Vic GIVING THANKS I can’t believe I’m reading the Christmas issue of Country Style! Where has the year gone? “Christmas is a time for…

1 Drift beach towel, $89 each (or purchase in a set of two, four or six), from Sunday Supply Co. 2 Aegean Navy stripe extra-large beach towel with soft rope fringe, $59.95, from Pillow Talk. 3 Mia 100 per cent Turkish cotton towel in Deep Ocean, $39.95, from Seed Heritage. 4 Sophia beach towel with knotted tassels, $57.95, from The Iconic. 5 Harry Pocket 100 per cent Australian cotton beach towel in Cornflower Blue, $99.95, from Country Road. 6 Tropo beach towel in Moon with rope twist hem, $74.99, from Sheridan.…

SHANNA WHAN HAS NEVER been one to take the easy road. For many people, winning their own battle against alcohol addiction would be enough of an achievement – but after becoming sober in 2015, Shanna kept going. She founded a not-for-profit organisation, Sober in the Country (SITC), and launched a national conversation around the trickiest of topics: the attitude to alcohol in rural communities. “In the bush, the truth is our social and work lives are built on the social lubricant of booze,” Shanna says. She saw the need to centre communities around the idea of mateship, rather than the choice of drink. She also saw that for rural people struggling with alcohol, city-based models relying on face-to-face groups or anonymity weren’t necessarily effective – so she added an online…

I OFTEN START my column with a retrospective look over my shoulder, and this time is no different. One of the first cookbooks I bought was by the great and sadly departed Nico Ladenis, a self-taught chef who predated the Marcos, Jamies and Gordons. One of Nico’s signature dishes was a Quenelle of Turbot with Sauce Nantua (crayfish sauce) and, at the time, that dish seemed to express the distilled refinement on the plate that I had yet to experience during my apprenticeship. A quenelle is a light puree or paste usually, though not exclusively, made from white fish fillets. Once the fish has been blitzed, it is passed through a fine mesh sieve to remove sinew and membrane, then eggs are added before cream is beaten in to increase…

IN 1932, NEWLYWED WINSOME HOSKINS named the apple orchard she’d just bought with her husband, Edgar, after a character in Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. She dubbed it Brangayne, after Isolde’s handmaiden Brangäne, who prepares a love potion for the titular characters. But Winsome couldn’t have known that almost a century later, after the apples were slowly replaced with grapes, a different kind of potion would be serendipitously magicked up on the same rolling hills: wine. “Why she chose this secondary character name for the property is a bit of a mystery to us,” says Winsome’s grandson, David Hoskins, who runs Brangayne of Orange wines, about nine kilometres from Orange in New South Wales. “I’m told my grandmother was a very unusual sort of person.” And creative, given she designed…

WHETHER IT’S FOR THE first time or the hundredth time, dropping your child off at boarding school after the holidays is bittersweet. Bags are hauled to dorm rooms and friends are made (or reunited). The excitement is squeal-worthy and adventures await. On the other hand, tears can flow. Nerves can fray. And you can squeeze in only so many extra-long hugs before saying goodbye. Being away from home for weeks, or even months, is a daunting prospect for kids – and parents. Homesickness is the number-one challenge experienced by boarding students, reports Terrie Jones, principal of Canberra Girls Grammar School (CGGS). “As welcoming and as wonderful as the boarding staff and house are, it’s still not home,” she says. Resuming boarding, especially after the Christmas break, can be overwhelming for…