A PERFECTIONIST streak drives speciality cook Leanne Pooley, writes SARAH HUDSON

Dotted around Leanne Pooley's kitchen are snippets of wisdom.

On her whiteboard is a quote: "If you want a rainbow, you have to put up with a little rain".

Another reads: "Remember to run gently".

"That's because I've got to remember to be gentle with myself and I have to step back every now and then," Leanne says.

And her favourite: "It's not what you gain but what you give that measures the worth of the life you live".

The sayings offer a glimpse into Leanne's life and more pointedly her business acumen, which has seen her homemade Unforgettable Products gain a following around the Yarra Valley and beyond in just three years.

"I think they (the quotes) help to make my business a success, to take stock and get strength, but I just have to make time remember to read them," she says.

Time is not something Leanne has a lot of since her days are spent by her Warrandyte home's stove, lovingly making a range of seven meringues - including berry, vino cotto, passionfruit and mocha - as well as honeycomb (classic or chocolate), biscotti, pastry cases and curd, in either lemon or passionfruit.

The curds are each hand-stirred for 25 minutes ("I should have muscles by now"), while the meringues are cooked "low and slow" - 100C for 2 1/2 hours.

All products are sold in markets and shops around the Yarra Valley in packages designed by Leanne, while her daughter, Katie, a chef, helps with the cooking.

She says there's always a product she's experimenting on and predicts a strawberry curd is in the offing.

Leanne started Unforgettable Products about three years ago and says the business has evolved naturally, but she now works hard to keep up with demand.

Whatever she does, her philosophy remains the same: have fun, be generous and do it to perfection.

"I never want to get bogged down with work I don't enjoy. It's all a lot of fun. I get really excited when customers come back to me and comment on the products. It's so fulfilling."

"Most things I do I like to succeed in and if I do something I like to do it well. I dot my i's and cross my t's."

Leanne came late to the food industry, with the business born out of a lifetime's love of food and cooking.

She grew up in Brisbane, one of eight children, and recalls regularly cooking for siblings, while her father (a dentist) had an adventurous palette.

"Dad did a trip to Japan in the late '60s and he came back and we were all eating sashimi with wasabi and shark-fin soup. I even remember eating pickled frogs legs."

Her culinary curiosity was fully tested after she followed her parents to South Africa.

She ended up living on a Rhodesian (Zimbabwean) cattle ranch with a game hunter and SAS soldier, who was required to cull wild game to ensure enough food and water for all the animals.

"I lived in the bush in a tin shack with an outside pit toilet and had a fascinating time," Leanne says.

"I ate Zebra steaks. It's beautiful, like rump steak. I refused to eat mpani worms, which are a little grub, until I smelt them cooking and they smelt like a leg of lamb."

After leaving the ranch, Leanne stayed on in South Africa, eventually running a supermarket and bottle store in the rolling hills inland from Durban and raising a family of three daughters.

Even in those years she always experimented with cooking.

"It's always been special for me to prepare and take an interest in food, to be adventurous and find new recipes."

In 1996, she returned to Australia as a single mum, working in banking, and more recently moved to Warrandyte with her partner, Johannes.

She says throughout her varied life she has maintained a strong work ethic, which she carries into Unforgettable Products.

"I'm just practical. If something needs to be done I just knuckle down and do it," she says.

"Sometimes I think I should have started (the business) in my 40s and not my 50s, but then again, I obviously wasn't ready for this kind of venture.

"I believe what is meant to be is meant to be."