Did Jimmy Barnes seriously swap cheap wine for chooks and floral art?
“Don’t tell anyone this ...” Rock legend Jimmy Barnes has a secret and it’s not at all what you’d expect.
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When you step inside Riverbend, Jimmy and Jane Barnes’ five-bedroom country estate, you might expect it to be packed with rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia. Gold records plastered on the walls. Electric guitars swaying from the ceiling. Action shot photos of the former Cold Chisel frontman, drenched in sweat and banging out one of his famous belters like ‘Cheap Wine’ or ‘Khe Sanh’ on stage.
“No!” cry the couple in unison when asked if that’s the case. “All that’s elsewhere,” Jimmy adds with a grin. “I appreciate all the gold records and things like that but I don’t need to look at them every day.” Instead the scene that’s much more likely to greet you when you enter the home, which was originally built by the author and dramatist Gwen Meredith, is the couple cooking up something delicious in their welcoming kitchen. When the pair bought the home in 2008, it was made up of three pavilions, with the centre pavilion containing several bedrooms and bathrooms.
“We made that into one big, open, kitchen dining room,” says Jimmy. “It’s the hub of the house and where everything happens.”
Inside, Jane might be cooking up a lamb roast in her preferred appliance – a Wolf oven – or Jimmy could be baking sourdough on his favourite cooking tool, a wood-fired Aga stove.
The couple even have their own separate sets of Japanese knives so they can prep alongside each other at the same time and don’t have to share. And there’ll always be a tonne of vegetables from the garden.
“Rainbow chard, warrigal green, spinach, leeks,” says Jimmy.
“We love our vegetables. Eat them in bulk.”
Their lifelong affection for cooking has led the couple to release their first cookbook, Where The River Bends, a nod to the river that runs alongside the couple’s home.
It’s full of family recipes the couple has perfected over the years, including Thai curries inspired by Jane’s heritage, as well as Middle Eastern, Japanese and Italian food they’ve grown to love while on their travels.
There are also happy accidents, like a dish the family affectionately refers to as Champagne Chicken, an invention that came about when Jimmy was trying to make Coq au Vin but didn’t have any white wine to hand. “Champagne and olives – it’s just amazing,” says Jimmy of his serendipitous creation. It’s also got details about brining meat; something the couple does routinely to maximise tenderness, and ideas about how to make vegetable stock from unused offcuts.
“We wanted to include something about how to make toast because everyone has a different way of making toast,” says Jane. “Jimmy likes his burnt and cold and with slabs of French butter. But the publisher said ‘We probably don’t need a recipe for toast,’” she laughs.
Food has always been central to the family’s life. “In our chaotic lifestyle, whenever we could over the years, we always tried to sit down together around the table at least once a day,” Jimmy says. “If we were on the road we’d try to find hotels that had kitchens. We’d debrief and talk to the kids about school, or what they were dealing with. That’s what holds the family together like glue.”
And it’s just as important now that all the kids grown. The couple have four children together – Mahalia, EJ, Jackie and Elly-May – and Jimmy has several other children from before he met Jane, including TV personality David Campbell. All are regular visitors at Riverbend.
“Elly-May lives across the road and Mahalia’s moving in because she’s just sold her place,” Jane explains. “We love it when Jackie, our son, comes from Queensland or David Campbell comes from Sydney with his family.” Feasts are central to their time together.
“Christmas is always the big one; we can have up to 50 people with all the kids and the grandkids and friends and orphans,” says Jane. “I’ll do a turkey. Jimmy will do a duck with a black pudding and chestnut stuffing, and one of the girls will do a ham with a whisky glaze.”
“And Scottish trifle,” adds Jimmy. “One that’s so huge it takes three days to eat.” It’s not just family who’ve sat round the Barnes kitchen table. There are the Cold Chisel boys of course, and actor Sam Neil pops in when he can, giving Jimmy an excuse to prove that Aussies can cook lamb as well as their Kiwi cousins. Singer Neil Finn’s wife Sharon designed the many chandeliers – or, as the Barnes’ call them ‘Sharondeliers’ – that swing. Celebrity chef Lennox Hastie made an appearance at a recent birthday party for Jimmy, cooking an outdoor feast over charcoal.
“I just stood there watching him, it was amazing,” says Jimmy, adding with a laugh: “I think he wants me to be his new apprentice.”
Celebrity is irrelevant here at River Bend. “All our friends are equally special,” says Jane. Singalongs are a part of everyday life; Jane plays guitar, Jimmy sings or jumps on the bagpipes, and anyone is welcome to join in.
When they’re not in the kitchen, both Jimmy and Jane love spending time in the garden. They’ve recently built raised vegetable beds, and planted a garden to attract bees. “We’ve also got the Taj Mahal of chicken coops,” says Jane. “More like Buckingham Palace,” Jimmy interjects. Eight chooks, including speckled Plymouth Rock hen Joan Jett, keep the household – and the neighbours – stocked with fresh eggs.
And Jimmy has taken to tending the rose garden. He sings to the blooms to help them grow. “If you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d be gardening I’d have said you were crazy,” says the former Working Class Man. And he has one final, very un-rock ‘n’ roll admission. “Don’t tell anyone this,” he whispers. “But I’ve become pretty good at arranging flowers as well.”
Where The River Bends by Jane and Jimmy Barnes (Harper Collins) is available from November 3.
Scroll down for more pictures from Jane and Jimmy’s beautiful home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. All photos taken by Alan Benson.
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