Eat Local, Live long and Prosper

The Blue Bird Cafe duo (that would be Roger and Me), has joined the Eat Local Thursday Market as stallholders.  We have decided to focus our market offerings on our gluten-free range of food.  Last Thursday was our first foray into the market which operates at the Murrumbidgee Turf Club in Wagga Wagga between 2.30 and 6.30pm.  We really enjoyed meeting the other local food producers and felt so welcomed by their friendliness that we knew that it was the right decision to bring our food out of the cafe for a day a week and introduce it to a new audience.  We know that there are many people out there who have made the gluten-free commitment and we enjoy the challenge of catering for their needs.

Last week we had Christmas cakes, Christmas stuffing, Roger's Rock Show sauce, luxury fudge and gluten-free party popcorn mix.  We also took along our special CLOey fertiliser to share with the market stallholders.  This week we will have ready-to-heat gluten-free meals, retro chocky rocks, lemon teacake, chocolate nut biscuits and gluten-free jelly slice.

The raison d'etre for the market is to provide an outlet for local food produces to sell their specialties to an urban public.  There is an emphasis on organic produce and the stallholders support each other by buying ingredients from each other.  So the tomatoes in Roger's sauce are locally grown and we get to hand pick them at the market.  And so on.  We look forward to this week and meeting more like-minded food produces and buyers.

Grand Opening Day - An Invitation

On 6th November 1934 Lockhart's new cafe "The Blue Bird" opened its doors.  It had been trading since 1906 as "The Marathon Oyster Bar and Saloon", "The Marathon Stores" and "Peterson's Cafe".  They were all precursors to the cultural icon of the Greek Cafe and were mixed businesses selling meals, fresh fruit and vegetables, grocery items such as tobacco and kerosene, confectionery, cold drinks and smallgoods.  Peter Veneris and Tony Matis had operated "The Paragon Cafe" across the road in Green Street since the early 1920s.  They took on the bigger cafe which had always been Greek run and decided to modernise.

Renovations and refurbishments were made to the building including new plate glass windows, a kitchen extension and realigning the roof.  Painters and decorators were called in and the doors were opened on Saturday 6th November to "The Blue Bird" now selling American style ice creams, sodas, milkshakes and its very own orange ale.  The Blue Bird quickly became Lockhart's premier cafe and sundae shop after its proprietors Peter Veneris (senior) and Tony Matis, offered first day's gross takings to the Wagga Hospital.

Eighty years on Roger and I are marking the date with a small celebration of our own.  We are opening our doors between 2 and 4 pm on Thursday 6th November for a celebratory afternoon tea and in tribute to the original proprietors, we are donating the proceeds to our local branch of The Red Cross.

So if you can join us to mark this milestone, please join us for afternoon tea.

The Booths are Back in Town

See, just like we promised at the start, the Blue Bird booths are finally back where they belong.  The iconic furniture takes pride of place in the cafe once again alongside the milk bar and the art deco mirrors.  Oh, you have no idea how fantastic it feels to finally be seeing our original vision come together.  It was a vision born two years ago when we looked through the grimy windows at the abandoned Blue Bird and grabbed the chance to rescue an old classic.  We saw how it could still be vibrant in a modern world, a world that had harshly dealt with most of its compatriots in towns across the country.  Somehow The Blue Bird defies the odds and lives on.

And she is looking good if I do say so.  The booth refurbishments have turned out well.  New highlights, new curves, new bling.  Our design touches are the stepped waterfall decorations under the mirrors and the diamond propellers on the ends.  We still have a bit of trim and some mood lighting to install but the new, old look is about 85% there.

The booths were unveiled at Spirit of the Land 2014.  It seems that we make a habit of revealing a new facet of the cafe at each anniversary.  It has so far been an incentive to give that extra push to complete each new stage.  The balancing act between surviving day to day, hand to mouth running a cafe and finding the time and money to complete projects has been immense.  Especially as life has a habit of getting in the way.  My philosophy on life (well one of many), is that it is good to have an idea about where you are going but putting firm timelines on a plan will likely bring the heartache of failure because no one is in complete control of life.  Goals are good but I would rather be a lifelong traveller than a tourist on a bus trip.  How we got the booths back in the cafe and what we learned about ourselves along the way, is far more interesting than the project itself.

P.S.  A person sitting in an orange booth looks across at a person sitting in a green booth.  Symmetry.

Another First

Inspired by our recent pie win I took the time during a quiet spell on Saturday to do some baking.  It was a bit slow in the cafe during the AFL Grand Final so I got out the mixing bowls and baked a chocolate cake to enter into the Lockhart Show the following day.  I am always nervous entering local show cookery competitions because I know that I am taking on longstanding country cooks, champion sponge and scone makers.  The standard of their entries is often high.  These cooks have after all been making and entering cakes for many years.  Their recipes have been handed down from generations of cooks and they know their kitchens and oven temperatures like the back of their hands.

Roger's grandmother could put her hand in her gas oven and tell by feel that it was the right, even temperature to cook the perfect sponge.  She made her own butter straight from the house cow and fed it in curls to her grandson.  Our friend Joy's mother Connie was inspirational.  She was taught to cook by her mother and passed her knowledge on to her own daughter.  Connie made champion sponges and fruit cakes and her cooking supported charities like the CWA and Red Cross at The Rock throughout her life.  Today Joy tirelessly makes trays of slices for the same charities.  Jelly slice, peanut caramel, hedgehog slice, she has made so many over the years that she is hard to beat.

So when I entered my high school recipe chocolate cake into the local Lockhart Show, I was summoning up all my experience and skill to compete.  After all, this cake was the first recipe that I learned in cookery class at school and my mother and I have made it many times sine then so I've had a bit of practice at it.  Mum adapted the recipe successfully to a coffee cake so that she could enjoy it too (she can't eat chocolate).  She used to bake every Saturday afternoon to fill the tins for Sunday lunch and weekday afternoon teas.  She is a good baker and passed her skill on to me.

We were too busy in the cafe on the Sunday to be able to join in the fun out at the Lockhart Showgrounds so I had to wait till the end of the day to hear whether my egg-free, low-fat chocolate cake had made the grade.  It won 1st Prize in the chocolate cake section and I have proudly displayed my certificate in our front window alongside the others.  The local win in the Lockhart Show is as important to us as our tourism and pie awards because a win at the local show offers us the support of our community. 

David takes on Goliath

We are over the moon today and immensely proud.  A few days ago we entered our Kashmir Vegetarian Gluten-free pie into the Official Great Aussie Pie Competition and with the results now in, we did better than expected.  After all, we were the David, going up against the Goliaths of the Australian pie world.  The competition within the industry was huge with the lists of medal winners over four days reading like a who's who of bakeries around the states and territories.  And there was my pie, packed carefully and tightly in a polystyrene box hoping that, with all the "this way up" and "precious pies inside" instructions on the outside, it would make it safely to Melbourne.  Apparently it did.

We looked for the results on Day 2 which, was about when we figured that our pie would have been judged.  Gold!  It had won a Gold medal and we were thrilled.  After all, I have only been making gluten-free pies since the start of winter so consider myself a rookie.  However, I have a philosophy where food is concerned.  I was a vegetarian for years and was always disappointed when I ate out.  If there was not a specifically dedicated vegetarian meal on the menu then you usually ended up with chips or wedges.  If there was, it was often pasta with a whole bunch of unrelated vegetables thrown together.  It felt as if I was being given a second class meal with all the leftover vegetables from other dishes.  It was as if the cook was saying that a vegetarian meal comprised nondescript food with the meat removed.  They were not dishes in their own right, with flavour and style.  So when I became vegetarian I decided that I was going to create dishes for my carnivorous friends that they could enjoy without noticing that there was no meat involved.

This is the approach I have taken with our gluten-free pies.  It is not a second-class pie, it has as much care and consideration in its making as any other pie.  I enjoy the challenge of replacing something conventional with something out of the ordinary and coming up with something tasty.  I guess I got it right with the Kashmir Vegetarian Gluten-free pie because we not only won a gold medal but...the overall gluten-free prize.  That means that the Blue Bird has been judged the best gluten-free pie...in Australia this year!  Wow, that was much better than we had expected.

We wished at the time that we could have entered our famous sausage roll and another gourmet pie as well but felt that the timing was not right with family visiting from NZ, Spirit of the Land preparations coming up and two local shows in which to participate.  This was also a long shot competition for us but we figured that you've got to give these things a go or you will never get anywhere.  Besides which, even just the effort of entering says to our customers that we believe enough in our product to let it stand up with others in our industry.  And we were right to have faith in our pies.  So now that we are feeling inspired, we will free up the time and resources to enter more categories next year.  It is always good to have the validation of your peers and this has definitely been a huge boost to our confidence.

Many years ago Peter Veneris made pies every day he worked at The Blue Bird.  Meat and apple were his pies, he told us.  We are honoured to keep up the Veneris tradition of pie-making.  In Peter's day, meat and apple were a staple variety.  In the 21st Century, new flavours and styles have emerged but the tradition of hand kneading dough and rolling out real homemade shortcrust pastry remains part of life at The Blue Bird.

On a Brighter Note

I will not dwell on the grim days of last week beyond offering our condolences to the Hunt family.  We do not know many of them well but nevertheless their heartbreak must be immense and we feel for their pain.  Also to the children of St Joseph's School who have suffered such a shock in their young lives.  You wish that you could shelter children from pain but life is full of distresses and it is not always possible to protect childhood innocence.  If there is anything that we can do from here, then we offer our ongoing help and support.

Prior to last week, we were working hard to perfect one of our gluten-free pies.  Why?  Because we decided to enter the Official Great Aussie Pie Competition which is being held in Melbourne as I write.  While we have only just begun our careers in pie-making, we decided that it was worth throwing our hats into the ring and entering.  We decided to start relatively small with just one offering this year as we understand that the competition is high.  Bakers and cafes from all over the country compete.

So our choice for entry was a specialty pie because that is what we consider we do best.  We have entered a vegetarian gluten-free pie.  Our Kashmir Pie has a handmade gluten-free shortcrust pastry base, filled with a mash of pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, apricots, almonds and currants infused with sweet Indian spices.  The pie is topped with a mashed potato because we felt it necessary to vary our textures, given the challenge to make gluten-free pastry as light as standard pastry.  Our aim is to infuse flavour into an uninspiring world of gluten-free cooking.  So fingers crossed and wish us luck.  We know that we are up against some titans in the baking world however, in for a penny...

Night of Stars

Exhausted is how I would describe the pair of us today.  We had a tremendous evening at the gondola masquerade awards last night in Griffith.  Sleep and recovery however, was sadly lacking as we had to drive back early to Lockhart to open up the cafe and serve our customers.  Phew!  But it was worth the trip and all the effort put in entering the Inland Tourism Awards.  This may just be the start of something for us.  It certainly feels like we have taken a new direction and meeting all the people last night was like being welcomed into a group of like-minded friends.  We were nervous at the start of the evening but by the end, felt like we were celebrating along with others working hard in the tourism industry.

So how did we go?  As you know we were among the hopeful finalists in the Heritage and Cultural Tourism category.  We know that there were many others who never made it that far and felt proud to be considered for the award alongside the likes of Yanga National Park and Nundle Woollen Mill (a previous winner).  The competition was strong and the winner of the overall category was Yanga National Park but we won a special award of our own, one quite unique to the evening.  The Blue Bird Cafe proudly won the Encouragement Award, presented to us as a first time entrant just starting out on the journey.  We were advised that this award is not given out often but it recognises future potential and the integrity of a good tourism product.  We feel honoured therefore that we have the industry's faith in us and that we have been able to stand beside some outstanding businesses and multiple award winners.  It is an inspiration for us to go further next year.  Watch this space.

Wish Us Luck

Letting you all know that the cafe will be closed this Saturday evening and some of Sunday morning so that Roger and I can attend the Inland Tourism Awards in Griffith.  We have our glad rags dusted off and ready to go.  Courtesy of a lucky find at the opshop, I have a pretty new frock to wear and Roger has been instructed to scrub up and put on his Spirit of the Land fancy waistcoat for the occasion.  We will take some photos of the evening's excitement so that everyone can see us looking swish and having a ball.  It will be amazing if we win but even if we don't we are looking forward to a night away, a party and the chance to meet with other businesses working as hard as we are in the tourism industry.

Rest assured that we will still be cooking pizzas on Friday night and will make double the dough so you won't miss out as we will only be pizza making one night this week rather than the usual two.

So wish us luck and we will see you Sunday with all the news of the big night.

The Best Pizza in the World

I have eaten many a pizza over the years and a fair few more just lately but I can now say that I have tasted the world's best pizza.  On a recent trip to Melbourne Roger and I made it our mission to try the award winning Margherita pizza at 400 Gradi in Lygon Street.

Comparing it to a Blue Bird pizza is like comparing apples with oranges and we won't even go there but we did feel that our pizza stacked up well in the general pizza arena.  What we did really enjoy about 400 Gradi was the experience of sitting at the bar to watch the experts at work and soaking up in some small way, their skills.  The restaurant had a lively atmosphere and the staff were very professional but warm in their service.  We definitely recommend the food and the experience.

Milestones and Rewards

Any one in business will be familiar with the highs and lows that go with the responsibility of being your own boss.  At times you doubt having made the right choice taking the plunge from safe employment into the deep blue something.  Sometimes you fear that you might not have the stamina to stick at it when the growing bills are spread across the floor.  And then the next day you get up and don your rose-coloured glasses to look upon the hardship as the pain that will make the eventual pleasure seem all the more worthwhile.  Somewhere deep inside you find the strength to hold on to your dream.

And then every once in a while you get a boost, a reassurance that your cock-eyed optimistic belief in yourself and your vision for the future, has validity.  This week we have had an all important milestone boost.  I am proud to say that, after entering the 2014 Inland Tourism Awards, The Blue Bird Cafe has been selected as a finalist in the Heritage and Culture category.  There is plenty of competition out there so we feel very proud to be in the running.

I entered the cafe in order to boost our morale and found, as I filled in the extensive application, that it made me take stock of where we are now, two years after deciding to take on this outrageous adventure, as well as how far we have come.  I revisited our original business case and updated it to reflect all that we have learned about the practicalities of the hospitality trade and running a business.  I reassessed our business risks and our mission statement.  Our mission has become more eloquent over time but I am as charmed by it today as I was in the beginning.  And most importantly, the process of writing the award submission allowed us both to take a moment to dream.  We put all of our crazy blue sky ideas for the future down onto one piece of paper and looked at the shape our business could one day take.

It is all too easy to get bogged down in the day to day.  The routine of getting up and making pies each morning, the demands of the lunch and dinner time rushes.  Over time Roger and I seem to have managed to split ourselves into about three people each with six sets of hands.  It astounds me at how quickly the necessity of adapt and survive has made us efficient.  We approached the cafe two years ago with oodles of combined life experience and practical skills that we knew we could adapt to the specifics we would need.  Such is the enthusiasm of the optimist and it is surprising how quickly you do just that...adapt.

So when we heard that we were to get a site visit from a regional judge, we were chuffed (Roger is going to roll his eyes at me for using that word).  As I pressed the 'send' button on the original application, I remarked to him:  "Ah well, I have no idea if we have what they are looking for but it's worth giving it a go".  The site inspection was the morale boost we needed to take the next step forward.  I know that I spent the day of the inspection floating on a high, knowing that we had "done ourselves proud" in presenting The Blue Bird at its best.  Well, our best for the moment that is because The Blue Bird, Roger and I are still works in progress.  We work hard every day and it is fantastic to have made it this far in the award process and to be receiving some external recognition for what we have done as well as what we are still to do.  Both sets of parents, family and close friends have supported us with encouragement, sometimes physical assistance and always tenacious believe in us but at the end of the day it is Roger and I who struggle together through the tough bits.  We laugh when crying would get us nowhere and balance each other's downs with an up.

We now have to wait until the awards night on 26th July to see what happens so cross your fingers for us and watch this space.

Winter is Finally Here!

I wish that I could post beautiful pictures of snowy scenes in Lockhart because I have this theory that you can't take a bad photograph of snow.  It is too picturesque and photogenic from every angle but alas, it doesn't snow in Lockhart.  We have to make do with frost.

However, winter has arrived at last and I was holding off releasing the Blue Bird's winter menu 2014 until the weather was more conducive to warming soups and roasts.  I am now delighted to at last be able to say that our winter menu has kicked in and here are a few tempting morsels from it.

Soup every day served with home made ciabatta bread.  So far I have made the good old favourite from last year, Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup and Rich Creamy Tomato (not your average tomato but our secret recipe).  A new flavour tried out this weekend, Creamy Corn, went down well with a couple of corn lovers.  The weather was so icy over this weekend just gone that I had all three varieties on the menu.

Pies, pie, pies!  Home made, of course.  The flavours vary but the warming spicy aromatics of the Moroccan Chicken have been gobbled up and the traditional Roast Lamb Dinner with peas and potatoes included as part of the pie are satisfying appetites.

Home made Lasagna is coming into its own as hearty hot food is preferred over light summery meals and the spicy kick of our new pan-fried Mexican Burrito filled with chilli rice, beef, capsicum and corn offers that warming feeling from the inside out.

Beyond the Cafe

A trip to Lockhart promises visitors more than The Blue Bird.  Known as The Verandah Town, an active Progress Association, Shire Council and many community groups have contributed countless initiatives over the years dedicated to the beautification and well-being of the township.  Lockhart town and Lockhart Shire remain proudly independent from larger municipalities and although Wagga Wagga is only 60kms, the town of Lockhart has everything it needs to be strong and vibrant.  Here are some of the things you could discover on your trip to Lockhart.

The Doris Golder Gallery - Without spoiling the surprise, the intricately detailed and unique art of our lovely local octagenarian Doris, is something to behold.  Not many towns can claim to have someone as talented in creating woolen portraiture so Lockhart is fortunate.  Doris still lives just around the corner and is one of the regular customers brightening The Blue Bird's day.  After admiring her work at the museum, and if you are lucky, you might find her here having an ice cream with us.  Doris will happily tell you about her life and work and it makes quite a story.

The Spirit of the Land Festival and Sculptures - During the recent ten year drought some creative locals were inspired to offer depressed farmers something to take their mind off the devastation.  The National Farm Art Sculpture competition began and subsequently launched new careers for a few farmers who turned their versatile hands to sculpting.  A generous  annual sponsorship from the Lockhart Shire Council has ensured that most of the winning sculptures have stayed in town to become part of a farm art sculpture trail.  The Spirit of the Land Festival held on the second weekend of October each year, has become a major attraction.

The Pastoral Shadows of Brookong - On the outskirts of town, this gentle walk tells the story of the settlement of Lockhart.  It features silhouettes of swagmen, wagons, coaches, shepherds and other tableaux displaying rural life in old Australia.  Local artists and members of the Men's Shed have cut the silhouette sculptures out of iron and other scrap metals.

The Heritage Pavers - The Progress Association initiated this project as an indelible and charming way to record the names and dates of local families.  The names are etched on the paving stones forming a walk under the verandahs of the main street.  Ambling passed the shops on Green Street you can read the story of the people who built Lockhart a century ago, their descendants and many new families who now live in town.  A book expanding on these brick sketches can be purchased at the Greens Gunyah Museum.

Green Street - A number of interesting shops stand as neighbours to The Blue Bird on Green Street.  Heaven in Rags is a store that captures a distant era of clothing, haberdashery, millinery and shoes.  Ginge and Fluffs Second-hand Shop offers everything collectible from your childhood to good china.  The Lockhart Men's Shed sells handcrafted wooden furniture and toys made by the blokes in the shed.  The Brookong Nook Craft Shop is an outlet for local producers of jams, pickles and chutneys, free-range eggs and hand crafts.  The Red Cross Op-Shop is located in the building that started out as The Lockhart Hotel.  If you look closely at the stained glass window above its door you can see the remnants of one of its past lives as The Monterey Cafe.  And then of course The Blue Bird is more than just a cafe these days.  We operate a quality second-hand book shop within our business as well as a line of retro craft.  We have plans to expand our Blue Bird museum into one preserving the heritage of the Greek-Australian Cafes.

There is plenty more of Lockhart beyond the cafe.

Little Cloey

Roger and I are welcoming a new addition to our cafe family, CLOey.  CLOey is a Closed Loop Organic composting unit.  We invested in her (yes, you can't help but anthropomorph it into an employee, and one of the hardest working I might add) in order reduce overall waste in the cafe industry and also to manage our waste cleanly and efficiently.  CLOey is a very neat and tidy compost bin and she will happily chomp her way through vegetable, meat and bones all day long.  She gurgles, beeps and whirs gently and because her digestive system is temperature controlled, in 24 hours, she produces amazingly rich, dry fertilizer that is as powerful as chook manure.  We already have a few people around town lined up for CLOey's product and we are happy to share.

These compost units are all the rage in city cafes that are striving to be zero waste businesses.  They have industrial CLOeys but we only needed a domestic version because we do not generate as much waste as I imagine they do.  However, it's a start and we feel happy that not only are we using our cafe scraps and leftovers wisely on behalf of our customers, but we are also keeping our kitchen clean and hygenic.

Cross Buns and Custard

Easter has passed for another year and it was a busy one for us at the Blue Bird.  We had visitors from all over the state and others stopping by on their way to Confest and the Deni Blues and Roots Festival.  Happy, excited fresh people stopped in for grateful refreshment on Friday afternoon and not so fresh, tired, hungover people dragged themselves in for nourishment and a pick-me-up on the way back on Monday.  It was exhausting but as everyone was happy to see us open and appreciative of the atmosphere, enjoyable for us.

I made Hot Cross Buns and they turned out really well.  There is nothing like the smell of cooking fruit buns or the softness of one that is truly hot and fresh out of the oven.  I made a few dozen to fill family orders around town and next year I will definitely do that again.  They take a long time to make but I pretty much have them down to an art now.

And I am also venturing out into the hallowed Custard Slice territory.  Roger calls them snot blocks but that is unkind, a good custard slice is a thing of beauty as I'm sure any connoisseurs out there among you will agree.  It is the creamy but firmness of the custard, the subtle flavour of vanilla  in the custard and the sweetness (but not too sweet) of the vanilla icing that makes a seriously good custard slice.  I am giving it a good go so try one next time you are in.  At the moment they are a limited edition item on our menu so you will need to be in early to get hold of one.

A piece of crumpet

When was the last time that you had a home-made crumpet?  Not a question asked much when commercially made crumpets are so readily available to the crumpet eating household.  In fact until a couple of weeks ago (when I decided to have a go at making some myself), I could safely answer my own question with "never".  However now that I have both tasted home-made and made them for the cafe, I can say without a doubt that I will not be buying commercial crumpets again.  There is absolutely no comparison. 

A home-made crumpet is so very different and so much nicer.  Even though it takes more time and effort to make, I can say that it was worth the effort.  And fortunately for Blue Bird customers, you do not need to go to so much effort in your own kitchen, let me do the work and make the crumpets for you.  One customer's comment was that it was just like her grandma used to make and that it took her back to childhood.  And that is why we make them here at the cafe ...because the Blue Bird is all about recapturing childhood and enjoying the memories of grandma's house.  So next time you are in Lockhart on a Sunday for brunch or afternoon tea, try one of our homemade crumpets with butter, jam or golden syrup...whatever takes your fancy.

Take Home Dinners for One

We have designed some easy and affordable home-cooked meals that you can take with you as an alternative to factory produced supermarket frozen dinners.  We figure that they will suit busy working people with little time to cook, single older people living independently but who don't want to cook every night, and travellers in caravans wanting a break from toasted sandwiches and soup in a cup.

Our meals are single person serves.  They are handmade with care and designed for your convenience.  All you need to do is take them home and heat them up, then enjoy the fact that someone else has done the cooking for you tonight.

Choose from the following growing list of options:

• Traditional Lasagna
• Chicken Lasagna (our fresh take on the familiar baked pasta)
• Roast Lamb Dinner Pie (an entire lamb dinner in one pie!)
• Roast Chicken Dinner Pie (chicken, gravy, vegetables and potatoes all in a pie!)
• Tuscan Beef Pie
• Bacon and Egg Quiche
• Smoked Salmon Quiche

To make an inquiry or place an order, please contact us on 6920 5559.

Go the Pies!

 Not those Pies...these ones.  

As of this week I have started making my own pies each day as well as our own sausage rolls.  I love a good pie even better than a good plate of fish and chips.  Pies can be traditional or as inventive as you like so there is plenty of scope to play with taste and flavour combinations.

So far this week I have stuck to some traditional flavours to kick start the pies and get a few runs on the board before winter.  The bacon and egg and the beef, bacon and cheese have been the most popular and I think that people appreciate that the pies are made fresh, made here and made by hand.  No mass produced factory frozen kinds.

But I have also been fine tuning some gourmet flavours like; Chicken, sweet potato and mushroom, Tuscan beef, Greek lamb, Roast chicken dinner and the Friday special Smoked fish.  They will be coming soon to the menu but as the pies are made fresh each day and only one or two flavours at a time, you will need to be quick to get one.

Real Fruit Granita (that's a slushie to the kids)

Roger has mastered the juicer and we are full steam ahead making real fruit slushies served out of the milk bar just like they used to in the old days.  Back then it was the Veneris family's secret recipe Orange Ale and we are not claiming ours to be as good as everyone's memory of their refreshing drink.  However we would like to dedicate our version of something similar to the memory of Jack and Peter.  Everyone remembers their drink so very fondly.  They remember how it was a drink but used to ice up around the edges of the freezer and how it had to be stirred once in a while to keep it liquid.

Well, ours is more a traditional granita, in fact that is exactly what it is.  We make two varieties so far using freshly squeezed fruit juice (Roger has been slaving over the juicer just like Peter used to).  Orange and Watermelon Real Fruit Slushies are now on tap so to speak at The Blue Bird.  And as it has most definitely been 40+ degree temperatures all this week the summer is well and truly into what I call 'Watermelon Weather'.  In fact it has been the only thing that has managed to cool us (and our customers) down this week.  Roger reckons that the icy drink is quite moreish but as it is made with 90% fruit including pulp, it is probably not a bad thing to become addicted to in the scheme of things.

From the original comes the even better

I was truly surprised at how quickly our original home-made sausage rolls became a hit in Lockhart not long after I first started making them.  I think that was sometime in February last year...certainly before the Antiques Under the Verandah day because I remember making truck loads of them to sell that weekend.  Since then I have made a batch every day and almost every day, they have sold out.  That is really good feedback that I was on the right track when I decided to focus on flavour over size as the commercial varieties seem to do.  It has certainly been one of the main comments we have received about them...that our sausage rolls have flavour and that you can taste the meat filling.

So I decided to have fun experimenting with other flavours and came up with my own version of the classic Cheese and Spinach Roll.  It has a secret ingredient to give it a bit of extra pep.  That has featured sporadically on our menu now for a number of months.  At long last I can unveil a new, gourmet range of 'sausage' rolls...

Turkey, cranberry and brie - subtly sophisticated and slightly festive

Pork, apple and mustard - an English country flavour inspired by the Hairy Bikers

and..

Chicken, macadamia and sundried tomato -my personal favourite, the intense hit of sundried tomato balanced out by the creaminess of Australian macadamia.

Who said that a sausage roll had to be all about the meat?  My new flavours test the boundaries of the ordinary sausage roll and I hope I can tempt some traditionalists into stretching their imaginations and their taste buds to try something a bit different and new.

A New Year and a Milestone

Roger and I have not only made it through Christmas and New Year 2013, but we have also reached a bit of a personal milestone and are taking the time to reflect on all that we have achieved, as well as of course, as breathing deep for some new year's resolve.  January 2014 heralds the anniversary of the re-opening of The Blue Bird for meals and a rekindling of the business.  It might not have been as dramatic a year for the Shire of Lockhart as 2012, there were no floods in 2013, but it was a huge year for us.

The winter was long and hard to undergo our first year in business but we made it through and now we can say that we have seen all the seasons and seasonal changes.  We will know better what to expect in the coming year.  A tremendous learning curve and we are grateful that we have been able to roll with the times.  Spring arrived after a good rainy winter and the canola bloomed its butter yellow early.  The changeable spring with unfortunate late frosts was not kind to the farmers or their crops but Lockhart pulled through better than other areas and harvest took place earlier than usual to make the most of the crops that were left undamaged.

In December we suffered an early heatwave.  After the mild previous December in 2012, Lockhart had lulled me into a false sense of security.  Here I was thinking that it would not be as hot as people had warned me.  We sweltered for four days of temperatures that tipped over the 40 degree mark, followed then by sticky humid rain.  It wasn't so much the heat that distressed me as the multiplying bugs.  They might have been little but they learned over the week of their life span, to bite and be very, persistently irritating.  Tiny insects that pestered me day and night, attracted to light coloured things like our vehicle, our toilet and our skin.  The local Banjo frog was a welcome visitor in our back garden as they enjoyed a marvelous feast of insects.

Fortunately the weather cooled just before Christmas and it has since been a couple of weeks of lovely temperate 30 degree, fine days and cool nights so we have been able to get some sleep.  Christmas Eve presented a picture perfect sunset and since then we have been busy, busy, busy in the cafe as the traveling families make the most of the nice weather to trip around and stop at The Blue Bird.  Of course, I am having the same feeling that I do every year I work through the Christmas/New Year season.  I envy everyone else who is on holiday when I am not.  But it is a case of 'making hay' for us as we build up our business and we will be hopefully be able to stand back some time in the future and see the rewards of our hard work.

I terms of new year's projects?  Well, we are enhancing our collection of milk bar memorabilia and working on researching more of the history of The Blue Bird, Greek-Australian cafes and milk bars.  We have known all along that the most important part of what we are doing here is preserving a precious part of Lockhart's and indeed Australian history and the more of that history that we can share with the world, the better.  So here's to 2014 and its place in history.