My parents have built a walnut farm and a business which sells walnuts and walnut oil. I'm always thinking of ways to help which involve me telling Mum or Dad what they're doing wrong or what they should be doing. Now i have the opportunity to do that publicly.Actually my goals for this blog are about connecting the farm and our walnut business with the food industry and food culture in the broadest possible way. My idea is to simply to start talking about the things we love and that we're interested in that have some connection to food and to walnuts.
Like most families, we have an established food culture within our own family and each of the four of us have idiosyncratic eating habits of our own. Dad was born in Vienna and he likes schnitzels and dripping and bacon. If i'd have to guess his favourite dish with walnuts or walnut oil, I'd say he probably likes walnuts naturally out of the shell, maybe served with some good cheese and muscatel grapes. And he'd like a simple green salad with a walnut oil dressing. Dad? Did i get that right? How would you make the dressing?
My Mum (W) was born in Cowra, NSW. I think her eating habits have been influenced by being a mother and having to prepare food for the family for years, by increasingly having access to quality produce at home and abroad and connected to that, through her interest in history and culture. W likes fresh, clean flavours which combine a few interesting ingredients in a clever way. She is also good at discovering new things with her cooking, she's not one to get stuck in a rut. For instance she buys a pomegranate and uses it in a salad. Fearless, I tell you. If i had to guess W's favourite way to eat walnuts and walnut oil, I'd say that she'd like walnuts in a crumble and (like me) she'd like my Dad's chocolate-covered walnuts (they are amazing - I want them now). She's great at adding walnut oil to baked and stuffed vegetables in the oven. Are they her favourites or just the things she cooks for others? It's hard to tell.
My sister (L) doesn't cook much. I think we all find this a bit weird. But with such good cooks around her, i guess she has no real need! I think L would like a good baklava, actually so would me and my Mum. We've never tried to make one with our own walnuts - so that would be a challenge. Actually L has one speciality - she's great with salad and salad dressings. So that's another thing to find out - what's L's magic walnut oil dressing recipe?
As for myself, I have the weirdest eating habits of all and I could talk about these for ever. Currently I'm a fish-eating vegetarian (a vegaquarian) and i've been a vegetarian for most of the past 12 years. At various times i've been a Vegan, a fitness fanatic and I've had various forms of disorderly eating along the way. I wonder if my family would be surprised to hear that I would love a walnut stuffing? I've never tried to make a vegetarian walnut stuffing - but even as a vegetarian i think that a duck stuffed with walnuts, apricots and prunes - or something like that would be quite deluxe! I will have to investigate a vegetarian walnut stuffing. I've never even made a nut loaf! So already i can see how this blog might be productive in thinking about walnuts in new ways. (Another thing i'd like to do is to try and get more local Fitzroy restaurants serving our nuts and oil). As for using walnut oil, I like it drizzled over steamed vegetables. Roast pumpkin is amazing at the moment and it tastes great with walnut oil. That might be a component of my dinner tonight.
The image with this post is a gargoyle mask in walnut.
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