Dinner with the Quince Queen
Thanks to her decades-long devotion to growing and cooking quinces, Cathy Hughes has earned the moniker, the Quince Queen. And tonight, she hosts a dinner just metres from her Penola orchard.
It’s taken only a few minutes of being acquainted with Cathy Hughes for her to already be animatedly reeling off some of the 16 varieties of quince that she has growing in the orchard mere steps from her Penola home.
Cathy is about to walk out to that orchard to pick a few pieces of fruit that will sit on the table for a dinner party she’s hosting tonight for friends and fellow Coonawarra locals.
Out in the orchard, one of the property’s peahens is being trailed by her chicks as Cathy points out the different quince varieties. She’s picked one of each to use as a centrepiece on her table tonight, which will soon be laden with a Middle Eastern-inspired feast. But first, she and husband Rick Paltridge busy themselves with the finishing touches.
Rick Paltridge and Cathy Hughes have orchestrated a dinner dedicated to quinces.
The couple lives on a very special property, called Still Water, which Rick inherited from his step-grandmother, Mary Skene-Kidman, 30 years ago. Mary was the second wife of Rick’s grandfather – Eric Kidman – and when Mary tragically died young, Rick took over the property, while also helping on other family properties.
Rick had been working in Tasmania’s mining sector as a geological field technician before returning to Penola, where he has since been involved in countless community organisations.
As times change again, Rick and Cathy have now put the property on the market because Rick’s three children are all pursuing professional careers and won’t return to Still Water to live. Rick recalls afternoons spent with a tray in hand, walking around the garden during the 1960s.
Cathy prepares the entree before the guests arrive.
“Mary would host these garden parties in the 1960s and ’70s and I’d go around handing out drinks and cups of tea,” he recalls.
It’s no wonder he retains these memories, because the grounds are an oasis surrounded by scrub to one side and a golf course on the other – you can see a mob of kangaroos taking up their spots on the course fairway.
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But once you drive up to Still Water, grand river red gum trees offering welcome shade have laid their roots beneath plush lawn, and flowers and foliage surround the home. A wetland is surrounded by towering gums that look as though they’ve been there much more than the 160 years the property has been in Rick’s family.
Cathy has called the property home since 2007, after she and Rick met and fell in love after being set up by friends at a quiz night at a golf club in Mount Gambier – they still lament finishing in second place.
Cathy’s vol-au-vents
“Our friends who set us up didn’t let on for quite a few years,” Cathy says. “They didn’t confirm it until our wedding.”
Since calling Still Water home, Cathy and Rick have planted the quince orchard, which Cathy says is a result of her curiosity.
“People have their thing – some people are into fashion, some are into travelling or sport or poetry; mine is a fascination with quinces,” Cathy says. “I love the history. I love that fact that you could name a country and I could almost always come up with a traditional quince recipe from there. Almost!”
Sue Wesgarth owns a farm north of Mount Gambier
Graphic designer Cate Bell
The love for quinces began half a lifetime ago, Cathy says. A friend introduced her to making fruit jellies.
“I’d grown up with fruit preserves, chutneys and jams, but I’d never seen a jelly and it was like love at first sight,” she says. “It was a colourful, jewel-like preserve and I was immediately hooked.”
The first fruit jelly Cathy made was from feijoa, and then she experimented on quinces. To that point, the only experience she’d had with quinces was growing up on a farm in Geranium in the Murray Mallee.
“There was this little old quince tree and once a year, Mum would stew quinces, but that was my only connection and memory,” she says.
Cathy is now semi-retired – she was a home economics lecturer at TAFE SA for more than 20 years and helped set up the UniSA campus in Mount Gambier – but now helps local organisations with writing grant applications, while writing a book about the history of quinces in Australia.
Cathy’s passions, quinces and peacocks
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For tonight’s dinner, Cathy has set a table beneath a vine-covered atrium, built by Rick, with inspiration taken from his favourite American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The structure’s stonework echoes the stonework used in Lloyd Wright’s famed house design, Fallingwater.
Guests snack on a mezze platter before the main underneath the pavilion that Rick Paltridge built, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous house, Fallingwater, which features similar stonework.
Constructing the walls and plinths was a laborious process, but one filled with care and passion, Rick hand-etching a seam into each piece of Mount Gambier limestone, before snapping them “like a scotch finger biscuit” in a press to achieve the desired texture.
Overlooking the table, a painting of quinces by artist Catherine Fitz-Gerald hangs on the wall as a reminder of Catherine’s role as artist in residence for their open garden in 2024.
As guests arrive, they make their way out to the lawn, which overlooks the orchard and an expanse of gum trees that stretch to the horizon. Glasses are filled with the lightly blushing Cuvee-Co NV Ivy Elliot Rosé, a wine made by one of tonight’s guests, Peta Baverstock.
Peta Baverstock pours a glass of the Cuvee-Co Ivy Elliot Rosé.
Peta explains that the wine, which carries her grandmother’s name, was awarded the Champion Sparkling at the 2024 National Cool Climate Wine Show.
The Coonawarra-based winemaker has a pop-up cellar door in Penola and is deeply involved in the community, sitting on the Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival committee.
Peta is here tonight with husband Nick Baverstock, who has worked in the wine industry for more than two decades, across several regions. He’s currently a vineyard manager at Treasury Wine Estates in Coonawarra and manages a vineyard that provides fruit for Penfolds, Wynns and Wolf Blass.
Another guest, Cate Bell, is a graphic designer, artist and owner of Cate Bell Art Design, as well as teaching art at Penola High School. She’s currently helping Cathy with graphic design projects, such as her Quince HQ website and newsletter.
Julie and Rob Forgan live in Mount Gambier and are good friends of Cathy and Rick. They all met at one of the monthly film sessions hosted by the local Reels Film Society.
Brad Mann and Rob and Julie Forgan enjoy entree.
Rounding out the guest list are Brad Mann, an optometrist and Grant District Council councillor, and his partner, Sue Wesgarth, who has worked in the media in country South Australia and Victoria. Cathy asks everyone to move to the pavilion where there’s a selection of mezze dishes to snack on with Peta’s wine. Tonight’s cuisine is Middle Eastern-inspired and the mezze includes homemade hummus and lots of pickled vegetables.
For main course, there’s slow-cooked lamb shawarma with a host of fresh, flavoursome salads, packed with parsley, lemon, mint, orange blossom, quince molasses, and a quince vinaigrette.
The main featured lamb shawarma and a variety of salads, including red cabbage, carrot and mint salad, and freekeh, parsley and cranberry with quince vinaigrette.
The table is alive with all the happenings of the area, from vintage and the arts, to local charities; every person here is fiercely passionate about this patch of the world and will forever champion it.
As the wines continue through the flight that has been carefully considered by Rick, we reach the final course – Cathy has created a quince panna cotta with a delectable layer of spiced quince jelly and cinnamon yoghurt cream.
Then, it’s the highlight of the night – the hotly-contested quince quiz that Sue has prepared. Answers go flying about the table, with the occasional one landing, while the dessert is enjoyed. Nobody is really keeping score, but it’s a fun way to end a night that has been an ode to quince.
This article first appeared in the April 2025 issue of SALIFE magazine.
