Bullet-hard tomatoes shrink-wrapped to styrofoam trays not for you? Me neither. But while farmers markets may be your best option for dewy, full-flavoured, just-plucked produce (not to mention a good chinwag with a farmer), what happens when, mid-week, you're gagging for homemade soup and find yourself clean out of parsnips? Or broadbeans? Well, if you lived anywhere near Cotton Tree, you'd be scooting on down to Get Fresh. Sure, the name's not the most original, but apt it most undeniably is: this produce is not just fresh - it's alive and kicking.

Jamie Oliver once said you can tell the quality of produce by the care and attention with which it has been displayed. Well feast your eyes upon this gorgeous harvest tableaux:


Only an artist could compose such a glorious still life. Were he or she around in the 16th century, they'd have easily picked up a gig as chief food stylist to the Dutch Masters. If only I'd remembered to pack an easel, canvas and oil paints. A camera - pfffff - so ill-equipped to capture such blushing, veggie loveliness. Oh what buxom aubergines, what chubby cherubic mushrooms. What a garden of earthly delights!


Don't you just want to randomly bite everything? Or is that just me? I can be a wee bit obsessive about veggies. Bordering on lust. I'm the first to admit it.
And if you can pull your gaze from those graceful, leggy pasnips - take a look at these handsome, bloke-proportioned jars of jam. Sit a be-ribboned selection of these under the Christmas tree and you'll have one classy and delicious alternative to the socks and undies option.


But Get Fresh isn't just fruit and veg - you see, there's also a bakery section. And yes, it is all incredibly scrumptious. Absolutely top notch. So good, in fact, that it deserves its own post.
You'll be hearing from me.

Get Fresh sits prettily amongst the leisurely village ambience of King Street, Cotton Tree.
After some happy veggie perusing, you can indulge in a deeply satisfying hot chocolate next door, at Silva Spoon.
(And fellow veggie obsessives can find more leafy loveliness over here at Salad Ware.)

I have grocer envy. The entire town of Eumundi should have grocer envy. Eumundi has many good things,  but it does not have a grocer. Kin Kin does. And not just any grocer. Kin Kin has a Joli Good Grocer:


Don't you just love it when people do something with their whole heart and soul: when they take something as 'simple', something as prosaic as - well, a grocer's shop - and transport it to another level? And in this case, a level of picturesque, storybook charm. The letterbox red and jacaranda mauve paintwork, the gravelled courtyard, the pint-sized noticeboard, the window box garden spilling lacy tendrils, the lush potted herbs - oh mercy! It's so darned delightful I couldn't give a fig about the aberrant spelling - which of course, may not be aberrant at all. More than likely it's their name. Ms Joli: proprietor. Or Mr Joli. Or Mr & Mrs Joli. (Yes, I could have asked, but I'm not keen on pestering people. One reason I never took up investigative journalism ...)

Inside the JGG, as you may well expect, all is spotlessly clean and neat as a pin. There is nary a milk bottle nor bar of soap out of place. On the counter, a platter of freshly-baked muffins wait quietly beneath their gauzy canopy. Espresso is available. It will be brought to you in the courtyard on a tray.


What's that you say? You haven't been to Kin Kin? You haven't heard of Kin Kin? You need to remedy that. It's a rather special place, and some rather special people live there. Sound wizard Linsey Pollak, for one. Don't go expecting 'stuff', though. Apart from the JGG, there's little except the pub. (But a fascinating pub nonetheless. In many ways your venacular Queenslander, but with the most extraordinarily capacious proportions: as though designed for a race of giants, who mysteriously departed sometime in the late 1800s).

So why go to Kin Kin? You go for the most painterly, pastoral, romantic countryside you can imagine, hidden away in the folds of a magical valley. There is a presence in Kin Kin - good spirits, I think. You'll feel them if you sit long enough. And even if you don't, you might wake from a daydream to find that  time has stood still, if only for a moment.

Tips:
1. Take the winding road-less-travelled from Pomona (watch those one way bridges).
2. Take a picnic.
3. Turn off the phone.