Story
An organic approach to life
words melissa siri
PHOTOGRAPHY lean timms
Cherie Hausler was a child when she realised her palate preferred the flavours of homegrown produce freshly picked from her father’s garden, over the mettwurst or lamb in equal abundance at her Barossa family table.
Fast forward to age 14, and the teenager chose a vegetarian diet, teaching herself recipes from two basic cookbooks borrowed from the local library.
A cognisant choice rather than an act of rebellion, here was a young woman not afraid to forge her own path. It’s been a repeating theme.
The daughter of a vineyard manager, Cherie was raised in the Seppeltsfield area, with views over the vines and a ‘quintessential’ country lifestyle she would come to fully appreciate years later.
Cherie said of her formative years, “I wouldn’t say we had a diet that was dissimilar to anyone else at the time in the Barossa, and so my Dad loves all of the German sausages. His family are all from here and originally from Prussia, so very much into that scene of smallgoods etc.
“It wasn’t weird to have mettwurst or black pudding but it also wasn’t something that I loved. Ever since I was tiny, I would always ask if I could spit it out, I’d just hide the meat down the side of my cheek. I haven’t deprived myself, it’s just not for me.”
A student at Nuriootpa High, Cherie’s spare time was spent with her much-wanted horse, along with being immersed in the local community.
“My parents were always heavily involved in community clubs like the Lions Club, the Apex Club, all the sporting clubs and catering for the Tanunda Football Club,” Cherie said, adding that it wasn’t unusual for her Mum to be coordinating meals for 80 to 100 people at footy on a Saturday night.
While a career featuring food wasn’t Cherie’s first choice after leaving school, it was a recurring theme in her early working life.
It was during a two-year stint in London in her early 20s, that her role as a nanny included cooking for two young boys.
“I taught them to get involved in cooking and they thought it was brilliant and we’d go to Portobello Road Market and choose all the veggies and imitate all the guys calling out about potatoes.
“And then those kids were so healthy, just with switching from stuff that was pre-packaged to homemade food. So that experience was brilliant because it was firsthand, the impact of good eating.”
Cherie’s globetrotting and passion for produce had been piqued but it was her next bold enterprise, alongside her partner Damien and brother Darren that saw her love for creating bespoke teas evolve from a handcrafted hobby to a saleable commodity.
“My brother had been in Japan for two years, we’d been in London for two years, all of us working and we stopped off in Thailand to have a bit of a break before we came back to Melbourne,” Cherie said.
“And long story short we ended up meeting the guy who would become our chef at our restaurant, Eat Me – that whole thing snowballed,” she explained, adding that the restaurant is far more ‘fancy’ 26 years later than the initial venture.
Charged with creating tea blends for the restaurant menu, Cherie headed to a Thai market for ingredients and got down to work.
“I absolutely love tea and the whole ritual of tea,” Cherie said.
“My Mum is a huge tea drinker and I feel like there’s this presumed sense that the kettle would be put on, no matter what the situation – if there’s some catastrophe the kettle goes on, if there’s something to celebrate, the kettle goes on if, there’s just a surprise visit, the kettle goes on and if you’re just by yourself the kettle goes on. It’s just always been there.”
“Food stops being something that you equate to a dollar value, and it becomes something that is of value to your actual life experience - and that is a massive difference.”
- Cherie Hausler
After returning home and getting married, a series of events lead to a new adventure in Sydney as a TV presenter, most notably on the lifestyle program Our Place with Scott Cam and fellow Barossan Maggie Beer as a guest.
Cherie and Damien had also bought a dilapidated farmhouse property at Koonunga Hill and when the TV show ended, they returned to the Barossa to pick up the tools on the renovation.
“It had no running water, no electricity, there were all but cows across the verandah – it was just in the middle of a paddock and hadn’t been lived in for years,” Cherie explained.
She also started work at Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop, which evolved into 13 years of varied roles, from marketing to styling and writing.
During that time, a casual discussion about her love for blending teas lead to the creation of Cherie’s first tea label, Scullery Made, so named because her farmhouse had a disused underfloor water tank/cellar.
A Barossa Farmers’ Market stall for the tea brand soon ‘morphed’ to include food such as sourdough, raw granola, brownies and tarts – one of many opportunities Cherie has embraced.
Among her long list of accomplishments is the creation and later sale of a commercial food products brand; magazine food writing; cooking workshops; a TV show titled All The Things and a tea label with the same name.
The latest instalment is the release of her first book.
A Plant-Based Farmhouse, published by Murdoch, was created in the ‘shed’ on her property, a beautiful space renovated using purposely salvaged items from an old farmhouse.
Appealing to everyone from vegans to those simply interested in adding more plants to their diet, Cherie has learned the book’s holistic approach particularly resonates with home gardeners.
“I’ve been talking to so many people about this in doing the book tour… there’s a level of gratitude for food that I just don’t know you can jump to without gardening,” Cherie said.
“I’m not saying everybody has to garden, but there’s a lot of information that sits between eating really well and then growing the food yourself that you can’t necessarily convey, or if you do, you sound like you’re asking somebody to join a cult because you get so excited about what you’re talking about…. ‘she’s banging on about broccoli’,” she said by way of example.
It’s an interesting point, the way you value fresh produce from your own garden and the happiness that evokes, when you patiently watch it grow, ripen and then eagerly pick your own harvest, rather than choosing from a sea of options at the supermarket.
“I often used to joke at the markets when people would say, ‘I can’t believe the price of that cauliflower,’ and I’d say, ‘you couldn’t pay me enough to take one of my cauliflowers from me, like I’m so proud of those cauliflowers!’ If they’re too much at $3.80 that’s not going to get it out of my hands, no way!
“Food stops being something that you equate to a dollar value, and it becomes something that is of value to your actual life experience – and that is a massive difference.”
Having come full circle from reading basic vegetarian cookbooks and experimenting in her mother’s kitchen, to serving friends chocolate covered fennel flowers and a brew of her own tea, Cherie’s organic approach to life is as refreshing as her recipes.
“I don’t have set plans, there’s pros and cons to not having set plans, superannuation for example,” she shared laughing. “So that’s why if there’s a comment that all these amazing things have happened, well yes, but it’s also because there’s not a solid plan sitting anywhere in the mix. If an opportunity comes up, of course I’m going to look at it.”
One aspect of Cherie’s life that’s endured is her love of the Barossa, which has only grown, rather than diminished.
The simple joy of putting on a pot of her tea and serving freshly baked cake harks back to childhood hospitality from her mother and all that’s good about the generous Barossa community.
“I guess it’s just that I didn’t have a full appreciation for what is normal life here until I moved away, and until I saw as many different parts of the planet as possible.
“I just always encourage everyone to travel for every reason, because I think it gives you an appreciation for so many things, but most of all for home.”
