Thank You Mr. Bill

Months ago when I went to the Noosa Food and Wine Festival, I met Bill Dowling, his lovely wife Caroline and tasted Bill’s Beetroot Marmalade.  Caroline put a bit of goat cheese on a cracker and sprinkled a few pieces of this chutney on top and I was in heaven.  I kept telling people around me to try it.  We went to Noosa with friends Jan and David and I found them on the other side of the room and brought them back to have a try.  We all bought a jar.

Then I went home with all my goodies from the festival and the jar of beetroot marmalade made it to the back of my pantry shelf.  I’ll admit it, I have a horrible pantry.  I just hate it.  I designed my previous pantry  myself with a counter bench with power points, slide out shelves, well lit — perfect.  The one I have now is in a corner, almost pitch black in there and no matter how I try to light it, it’s still dark.

“Do we have any English mustard?” John says.

“In the pantry,” says I.

“Can you find it for me?  I’ve looked for 5 minutes.”

So I’m not surprised that I lost the marmalade.

This weekend was clean the pantry and toss out anything past its use-by date and that’s when I found the marmalade.  I couldn’t open the jar fast enough.  I had one tiny piece of goat cheese left and a new wheel of South Cape herb and chive soft cheese and I was ready.

I ate the goat cheese with beetroot on top without a thought to sharing it with you.  Sorry.  It was fantastic.  I went outside and took a photo of the opened jar and didn’t think to wash off the label.  Sticky fingers.

Then I remembered you and made up a few crackers and took a picture and then ran upstairs to John’s office and said, “Look what I found?”  He doesn’t get as excited about food as I do but he eagerly ate a cracker or two and said, “This is really good.”  He’s a man of  understatement.  Orgasmic meals get, “that was all right, wasn’t it?”

Most of the stockists of Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen products are in Tasmania but thankfully, no matter where in the world you live, you can order some of this chutney.  You have to hunt for the “view cart” link once you select a product to buy but I promise you, it’s there.

Bill’s Beetroot Marmalade is on the sweet side, which of course is why I love it, but everyone I’ve served it to raved about it.  There’s also garlic and ginger and other spices.  It reminds me a lot of the roasted garlic and onion jam from Maine’s Stonewall Kitchen.  A little bit goes a long way but I’ll never be without either one!

This isn’t a sponsored post, I’ll tell you if anyone ever asks me to do one.  🙂  I met these friendly people, tasted their products and I was smitten!

Do you have a favorite chutney recipe?  Care to share it with us?