O lamb! and organ thunder: a sojourn in New Norcia

By Graham Baws

IF you asked me to list the ideal ingredients for a relaxing meal, things I’d exclude with a vengeance would be a 140-kilometre drive to and from the venue, just to sit down with 100 or more strangers.

Surely the epitome of enjoyment is to gather in intimacy to linger long over a meal in which we have had a hand preparing. Isn’t that the Slow Food way?

However, there is a need to fit these sentiments into today’s context. And who, if not Australians, are used to travelling great distances just to engage with the essentials of life? So when we learned that Slow Food had organised a lunch at the monastery in New Norcia some Sundays hence, we (or rather I) buried my prejudices, and we said yes.

I’ve made the drive many times to New Norcia, and beyond. The weather on Sunday of the lunch was just about as ordered as the food and wine turned out to be. We collected two passengers, Melissa and Mary, and set off quite early. There was little traffic through the city and even less on the road north. Until that is we passed Bindoon, and came nose to tail with the mining boom.

Obesity is clearly a problem in the mining industry. The vehicle husbanding the convoy at the rear had a large sign announcing it was ‘OVERWIDTH’. A speed of 120kph became 12kph with occasional full stops as the trucks ahead crept under power lines held aloft with the kind of long poles I remember the conductors on London’s trolley buses used to re-connect the trolley to its overhead power lines. One completely filled truck carried just four tyres and the one at the front, the body of a massive dump truck.

We phoned ahead to warn the organisers that some guests (ourselves included) were likely to be late and may miss the first organised event of the day. Or we would have done if there was a signal, but there wasn’t. It turned out not to be a problem, in the event the convoy took another route and we were on the road again.

The first glimpse of the hotel at New Norcia always brings a feeling of tranquility. Not because of the service it provides, but the style of a building built for a slower age. The cars, silently clustered around the perimeter of the building, had their noses pointing forward as if they too were quietly anticipating refreshment.

Clearly the Slow Food organisers had been at work. A welcome table drew in the guests and dispensed advice on what was happening and where. We walked through the grounds towards The Arcades to find three rows of long tables being dressed with all the tools a diner needs. Next door in a similar building, also with two solid walls and two open walls straddled with arches, drinks tables had been set up and were being stocked with wine and water and olives and nuts and beer. The guests were also to be served pizza straight from a transportable wood-fired oven that a couple of hours earlier had been anticipating a quiet Sunday at rest in the Swan Valley.

Standing around looking on at all the work taking place promptly got me assigned a job. There were cartons of shiraz requiring their corks to be removed and to ‘prove’ they’d been fully opened, their corks replaced up-side-down.

One of us removed the cap, the other the cork. In short order the warm quiet air in the tiled room was filled with a lovely yeasty smell, a bit like being in a pub just before opening time. People passing by were surprised to see that we’d taken the trouble to get glasses just to check, on a random basis, the quality and consistency of the wine.

Earlier in the morning both first-timers and some returning visitors toured the monastery town and a little before lunch just about everyone packed into the chapel to listen to the combined musical talents of Gabrielle Mercer and Joslyn Rechter, a beautifully balanced duo of (Moser) Organ and Voice. The music coursed through Salomé, Purcell, and Handel and finished tastefully with William Bolcom’s Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise which may or may not have had everyone thinking of lunch.

By the time drivers and walkers reached The Arcades, the tables had been set and pre-lunch drinks were being served. Vincenzo’s truffle-oiled pizzas were being consumed both as quickly as he produced them from the wood-fired oven, and as their temperature dropped sufficiently to make swallowing possible. Cooled drinks were in high demand.

Lunch on long tables turned into a long sociable affair, strangers ceased being strangers and became, at the least, temporary friends. I even saw some swapping business cards, though no one let anything distract them from the real business of the day which was enjoying everything. While taste is central to our enjoyment of food and wine, my modern mature mother, who has lost her taste in recent years, still insists on cooking her food the way she always has, though she claims she can’t distinguish between the flavour of the pasta, and the box it came in. Perhaps flavour memory plays its part.

The main course of Dorper lamb and the freshest of vegetables, cooked in New Norcia’s wood fired oven between batches of New Norcia bread and Nutcake, had an outdoor barbeque aroma, just right for eating almost outdoors. The musicians who made up the trio Musica del Mondo have a resolve I find difficult to comprehend: how they continue to play such lively and together music in spite of the proximity and aroma of the foods all around them. Another delight was to see Belinda in all her roles, from organising, to serving while dancing, back to organising, always with a ready smile, even when politely directing guests away from no-go areas of the monastery.

By the time we’d eaten Vincenzo’s unctuous Food Symphony port-soaked fig pizzas and cheeses from Cambray, Capel Vale and Harvey that could have been a meal on their own, we’d come full circle. Fortunately for me the cheeseboard stayed on the table until the end, so I kept returning to it sporting a challenging look that says, of course this is my first piece!

As a welcome and precursor to the monastery and the afternoon, Dom Christopher Power, the boss of New Norcia, spoke to his Slow Food guests about New Norcia and about the Robbed and Restored exhibition which had opened at the Museum and Art Gallery in August. He brought to life the story of the robbery 20 years ago, and the road to repair and redemption for 26 stolen paintings, joining up the dots for those of us who remembered the media reports at that time. And for those of you touched by the magic of New Norcia, there’s still a chance to help with the final restoration costs and, with it, an opportunity for (financial) immortality.

Throughout the day we met and re-met Melissa and Mary, in short we mingled. Most seemed to enjoy slowed-down time used up to talk and compare. Then at day’s end we met up on the hotel verandah, our departure point. Or was it? One couple was debating the prospect of delaying their departure with another glass of wine and seeking a room at the hotel for the night.