By Laura Rancie.
Browsing through Simmone Logue's life in images, I am met by well-curated squares of an idyllic and envious country Aussie life. Each dreamy picture shows off home-baked goodies such as apple pies and quiches, a stunning country landscape and airy light sponge cakes with floral adornments or a beautiful blonde perusing her well-established potager.
There are also glances of that familiar pie packaging we have all no doubt seen many times in Harris Farm Markets or Woolworths - delicious home-baked Angus beef and vegetable pies topped with caraway seeds and flaky golden pastries to give the sunset a run for its money, labelled simply Simmone Logue; handmade.
But it was not so much this that drew me to interview the Aussie beauty now winding down in her career, but her beloved Essington Park. Having just opened to the public this past September, it is a loving family property purchased almost 30 years ago by twin sisters, Simmone and her famous Australian landscape artist sister, Joanna Logue, or Joey as Simmone affectionately refers to her.
The day I interview Simmone she sits comfortably in her rustic kitchen, with Stretchy, the family sausage dog, on her lap. When I marvel at truly how beautiful her kitchen is, she comments ‘Darling, this is the heartbeat of our home. Essington Park was built in 1860 so when you’re here you feel that history and get a sense of how many mums and grandmas have cooked in it for the past 173 years.”
I am floored and ask her to tell me more. "Joey and I bought it together as a place to always call home and as our creative base. It doesn’t matter where we are in the world or who we’re with - we know we can always come home to Essington Park. It’s the glue that’s held us beautifully together including our little brother Chef Andy Logue. He’s my culinary hero, the best cook that I know.”
Following in his talented sisters’ creativity, Andy has also achieved an envious career, owning Bar Vincent in Sydney’s
Darlinghurst. "All three of us are cooks and you should see when the three of
us get into the kitchen together!” boasts Simmone.
When asked why she thinks all of them have such a formidable creative base, she reflects on her grandparents.
"My grandparents lived on the land - we always knew where our food was coming from. We were always foraging. We were always up a tree. We were always down at the dam. Nanna Logue taught us how to catch crayfish with a dirty old piece of meat hanging in her pantyhose at the end of a stick.
"Then we’d go home and cook it up. We were always in the veggie garden or going to the chook pen. Those memories are so precious and what we want to share here at Essington Park. How wonderful it is to have this place to offer back now. We’ve restored the shearers' quarters from falling down. Blackberries were growing inside it and birds nesting. The restoration of the old woolshed is now the creative space for workshops and classes, with a full kitchen. I’ll be running my cooking school there and Joanna will do landscape painting.
"Essington Park has been the love of our lives and I can’t imagine life without it.”
The sisters weren’t out to buy property 30 years ago but when Joanna stumbled across it by accident while plein-air painting for the day, she saw the For Sale sign on the gate. The sisters knew they needed it.
Simmone reflects: "Although we do come from the country in the Hunter Valley so I am a strong believer that if you were born in the country, you always love the smell of a bit of cow poo and at some point you’ll come home to the country.”
Shortly the 2024 schedule will be posted on the Essington Park website and the public will be able to come for the weekend, stay in the lovingly and painstakingly restored sleeping quarters, next to the woolshed and enjoy the slow warmth of the fire pit at night
Located only 40 minutes from Bathurst or less than 3 hour's drive from Sydney, you can immerse
yourself in the Simmone Logue lifestyle by participating in one of her curated
artisan cooking or painting classes and workshops during the day, eat her food
and listen to her stories. Or if you are planning a special event, just chat to
Simmone and propose your idea – she’ll be more than happy to put on a special
class or workshop just for you.
"I love to learn new stuff myself and I don’t want the Essington Park shearers' quarters to just be about me. I will always put on a beautiful lunch from our
garden, but I love the idea of collaborating with my fellow creatives. If
others want to come and host, I’m open to that. Collaborations, dying,
printing, native flower pressing, painting indigo on fabric, yoga retreats,
willow weaving, soil health and how to grow your veggies. One-day workshops - learning, making new friends, eating great food and having adventures.
"I feel I’ve come home to my creativity and have that fire in my belly. I feel now, the way I first felt when I started the Simmone Logue business when I was cooking in the back of my Balmain shop with my customers. That honeymoon period and making new friends.”
