Concrete Playground Visits the Cornersmith Kitchen

This week, Concrete Playground gets down and DIY with Cornersmith cafe's famous pickling sessions.

There are two beehives on the roof, tomato seedlings in the garden, and stacks and stacks of jars of pickles, preserves, jams on every shelf. Six days a week, people queue up for Marrickville cafe Cornersmith's changing menu of local, seasonal food. On the seventh day, the Cornersmith team close their doors, take stock of what's good at the markets, and get creative. Fruits become syrups, vegies become chutneys, and fresh milk becomes yogurt and cheese.

"We wanted to open a cafe that had the philosophy that we have at home which is local eating and seasonal eating," says co-owner Alex Elliot-Howery. Elliot-Howery runs the cafe with her husband James Grant, a boutique coffee man formerly at Mecca Espresso and All Press. That philosophy hinges on taking sustainability into the mainstream cafe world. "We want to do all the things that you can do in the country but in an urban setting. We wanted there to be a strong sense of community and understanding where your food comes from. But we want to be in the city - we're city people. Those things [seasonal, local eating and city living] aren't mutually exclusive."

Alex is not so much a cafe owner as a forager and a gatherer. Cornersmith sources its produce from a handful of farmers in the Sydney basin, and adjusts its menu accordingly. The Monday preservation sessions came about as a natural way to take advantage of the ever-changing weekly crop. "We write up on our boards what's in season," says Alex, "and then we preserve from there. We preserve and pickle something different every week."

When Concrete Playground visited, it was all about rhubarb. "This week we're doing rhubarb and orange jam, rhubarb syrup, rhubarb and apple chutney and a spicy mango chutney," says Alex. "There was one week in winter when we put a callout to locals in the community for citrus and got fifty kilos. We were up to our armpits in marmalade and preserved lemon. It was amazing. The mulberry season has just passed so we did mulberry syrup, mulberry jam, mulberry compote for milkshakes."

The cafe has instituted a barter system with locals who trade their leftover homegrown produce for coffee, a jar of marmalade or lunch. "A guy across the road drops in rocket every week because he accidentally planted too much. Yesterday another guy dropped off shallots, parsley, spinach and over ten tomato seedlings - he's going away and he was worried his flatmates wouldn't look after them. He knows they're safe with us! They're in our garden now.” All these far flung ingredients are drawn from the creative, lively and inspired community around the cafe and thrown into the preservation mix.

"Next week we're doing a pink grapefruit glaze for people's Christmas hams, and piccalilli; a mustard, chilli, cauliflower, green beans and zucchini thing which is also great with ham. We're doing mountains and mountains of zucchini pickles, because zucchinis have just started." Then, as summer breaks out, "we'll move into cucumbers, tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants and stone fruits."

Alex says preserving zucchini at home is simple and economical. “We have a basic formula that we follow for all our pickles. With zucchinis, we slice them thinly and salt them overnight in brine. Then we drain that off and make a vinegar syrup with whatever flavour and spices are on offer.” Alex reckons chilli, dill, fennel, mint are all great at the moment. “Then we put the vegies into sterilised jars and pour the hot, seasoned, spiced brine into the jars. Then we lid them. You can let them sit for a month, but we finely slice our vegies so it’s a pretty instant pickle.”

What's around the corner for the cafe? There are plans for cheesemaking classes, food education programs with Marrickville West Primary School students and pickling workshops for those interested learning the fine art of fermentation. “We want to have thoughtful decisions about every aspect of the cafe,” says Alex about the team's efforts to connect the farm with the city. “We're not claiming to do everything perfectly or exclusively. But we don't support factory farming, we only use ethical meats and we want to just make a space that people can come into and that they can take something away from.”

Tue - Fri 6.30am - 3pm, Sat - Sun 8am - 3pm; 314 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville 2204; 02 8065 0844

Photos courtesy of Cornersmith Cafe and Lauren Carroll Harris