Can you smell that aroma wafting down the Hume Highway as Pie Time heats up in the Southern Highlands?
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Pie Time is a month long celebration of all things pie, with cooking classes, farm tours, festivals, accommodation deals and more.
Steve Rosa, group manager tourism and economic development, Destination Southern Highlands, said preparations are well underway.
"As our many top bakers and chefs will attest, we are now firmly in the prep stages - rallying our bakeries, cafes, restaurants and tour operators, taste testing some amazing pie fillings and heating up the tour operators and pie warmers to become the Southern Pie-lands for the entire month of June," he said.
This year, Pie Time will also include some delectable new ingredients including the Sweety Pie and Bubbles Trail - the perfect match of local sparkling wines and pies.
"Pie Time 2019 has seen our local tourism operators become even more creative when it comes to their pie themed offerings. This year visitors can enjoy Pies in the Sky - star-gazing, pinot, pies and fires at Cuttaway Hill Wines, and Paddock to Pie Bonfires - held every Saturday during June at Farm Club Australia near Moss Vale," Rosa said.
The flagship event, the NSW and ACT Best Pie Competition, is being held on May 30-31 and the two-day pie festival, PieFest, will be held at the Bong Bong Picnic Racecourse on June 29-30.
Mr Rosa said the local pie makers, bakers, chefs and producers are gearing up for other pie related events which were highly successful in past years including Dine with a Pie, where visitors can sample the region's signature pies at hotels, cafes, cellar doors and restaurants available only for the month of June, and the Pie Trail where visitors can tour and sample locally made "hero" pies from more than 30 local pie outlets.
Wholefood classes
Holly Davis is one of the early pioneers of the wholefood movement in Australia and has been a life-long fermenter, beginning as a teenager in the family home where the linen cupboard came to house her ferments, cheeses and brews. She went on to co-found Sydney's Iku Wholefoods and teaches a range of classes on fermenting, bread-making and wholefood cooking at Sydney's Cornersmith cooking school. She's in Canberra on June 1-2, bringing her classes to Foodish cooking school at the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets. The two classes are "Just Add Flour and Water" ($180) sourdough class and "Winter Warming Wholefoods" ($150).
Details: befoodish.com.au
Temporada lunch
Dave Young at Temporada is trialling a new lunch set menu, trouble is there is nothing too set about it. The plan is to keep the menu changing, depending on what's in season and what's in the kitchen.
"It's also a nice place for our junior chefs to try out their ideas ... with supervision, of course," Young says. "Our regular lunch menu will still be available so anyone with a cheeseburger craving will still be happy."
On the new menu, think raw yellowfin tuna with wild rice, avocado, ginger and yuzu dressing; ricotta gnocchi with zucchini, black garlic and grilled radicchio; banana mousse, hazelnut praline and caramelised banana. Two courses $40, three $50.
Some like it hot
The taud man pla from Lemon Grass Thai in the City has been named Australia's most popular spicy dish in a survey done by Deliveroo.
The food delivery service went through their database and the fiery dish came out the national winner.
Canberra was also named the spiciest city, ahead of Sydney and Perth, with residents ordering the highest number of spicy dishes overall.
Who said Canberra is tame?
- Do you have any food or wine related news or upcoming events you'd like us to include in Morsels? Email food.wine@canberratimes.com.au