Hi, I’m Marieka

I grew up on a farm in country NSW and first came to the Barossa over 15 years ago. I immersed myself in the seasons, the landscape and the history and now the Barossa is very much my home.

By day, I’m a healthcare professional providing care and support to my community in a fast-paced and often demanding environment. It’s a role that is both challenging and rewarding, and one that I have been doing for almost 30 years. Away from work, I love historical recipes and cookbooks.

Meeting people, sharing a cuppa, and chatting about food memories is something I cherish. These conversations—filled with personal history and heartfelt recollections—are special, and I hold them closely.

In the kitchen, I have a love for baking—especially testing old recipes – and I enjoy cooking for others. When the season allows, I’m preserving fruit and pickling vegetables, keeping traditional food skills alive. I also love sharing the Fowlers Vacola method of preserving through workshops, helping others start their own preserving journey – one jar at a time!

Hi, I’m Sheralee, and I’m a keeper.

Born in SA’s Murray Mallee, I ended up living in the Barossa quite by accident, but felt an immediate spiritual pull.  It was a few years later that I pieced together the multi-generational connection that grounded me here and now I understand how this region, and its culture, become imprinted in your soul.

My Grandmother was a shearer’s cook and my Mother was a farmer’s wife.  They cooked with seasonality and practicality as their only rules. The classic recipe books I learnt to cook with were all in the kitchen – the Green and Gold, the Barossa, anything from the CWA. There were family favourites, but we lived on seasonal produce where nothing was wasted. Every year we bottled fruit and pickled vegetables, collected eggs and made fresh butter. It’s all still second nature to me.

I adore old recipe books because of the emotional ripples they instantly create. I love how they are artefacts of people and families and ways of life. I love how they are stitched together with resourcefulness and utility and how they are a roadmap to eating in ways that are simple and seasonal and frugal.  I love how they still resonate, so many years after their creation.  How they connect people and cement communities. And I love that I now get to do all sorts of fun things, with all of it.