As Christmas approaches I’m really glad to be spared a lot of the provisioning hoohaa. Despite my exhortations to organic, whole and locally grown, my culinary efforts are strictly the common garden variety. Very healthy but entirely lacking in creativity. Dave, number one son has more than made up for my lack in the culinary department, establishing himself as a chef with an innate sense of flavour and balance, his restaurant providing the food version of a date with Jennifer Hawkins (according to one highly-regarded food writer). Dave also steps in to prepare the traditional Christmas Eve feasts, the legacy of his Hungarian grandmother and his Dad. I’m happy to be in Dave’s hands, leaving mounds of golden Wiener schnitzel, fluffy rice, fresh tomatoes with Spanish onion and basil and Fritzi’s famous cucumber salad to him. I provide the champagne and the wine.
I’ll step up to the plate (?) on Christmas Day with a menu devised by Dave - a cold salad of smoked trout, kipfler potatoes, fennel and dill.
Boxing Day I’m off the hook again, this time fed by Dave and wife Pauline who take over the kitchen at nineteen23, the restaurant they established at Silvermere, her parents’ beautiful B&B at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. They’ll feed an extended family and I’ll watch in awe as the prepare the menu (currently under wraps) with consummate ease and familiarity. Christmas fare couldn’t get much better for this mother!
If you want to sample wonderful food in fresh mountain air while Sydney swelters, Silvermere is the perfect place.
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