Who is Hazel?
Hazel ‘Granny Haz’ Patterson invests all her energy and passion into creating, and cooking, the gourmet products for Kingaroy Kitchen Fine Foods. She’s a particularly creative & inventive lady, who is perpetually in the kitchen experimenting with country recipes. Granny Haz is renowned for sending frequent test batches of her latest homestyle creation to Head Office for tasting, accompanied by notes attempting to convince us this new fine food needs to be added to the store (we never need convincing!)
Born and bred in the Central Burnett area of country Queensland, Hazel knows exactly how to make the best use of local fresh produce in recipes. The Kingaroy Kitchen Fine Foods range actually evolved from homestyle recipes handed down from Hazel’s grandmother, who lived in South Burnett - some recipes date back to 1910!
Hazel is genuine with her country cooking. She grew up in an era when living in the country meant being self sufficient by having your own poultry for eggs, growing your own fruit and veggies, cooking your own jam, chutney and relish and making your own butter.
Hazel has an amazing wealth of knowledge and experience in food. She’s been in the kitchen since school, competing in country and state agricultural shows and catering for local organisations. Early in her career she worked with renowned orchardist Jack Parr near the Gibson Desert, and managed a huge citrus orchard for the Wiluna indigenous Ngangganawili Community.
Hazel’s culinary skills grew through living the country life for 10 years in Western Australia, where she learnt from the indigenous women how to cook their magnificent homestyle dampers in camp fire ashes, how to cook mutton 50 different ways and catered for the American consul and Lord Harcourt.
While raising her children in the 1990s, many Endeavour Foundation fundraisers benefited from Hazel’s catering delights. Hazel was often cooking up a storm for Endeavour’s popular Tiny Tot and Bride of the Year quests, with her daughters having fond memories of being woken at 2am by the roar of Hazel’s mixmaster.
With such a rich history and a kind heart, Hazel was proud to take the helm of Kingaroy Kitchen two years ago, with a goal to securing a viable future for this fundraising venture of Endeavour Foundation and its employees.