About

.... our author

I have been lucky.

I lived in Hong Kong in the last years of the Crown colony; eating dim sim in Wanchai and goose on Lantau Island.

I lived on the Mississippi River and devoured BBQ.

I landed in London, just as the restaurant scene there was exploding.

I have eaten bush tomatoes, with the couple who grew them, on their farm just outside Alice Springs.

I have crushed grapes- destined for port- in the Douro Valley. And shaved truffles, in a rooftop restaurant kitchen, in the shadow of Milan Cathedral.

I have stood in a field in Lot-et-Garonne and picked Agen plums.

Drunk fino in Jerez, with the man who made it, and stood in a cellar in Parma watching them grade the ham legs.

I have seen the other side as well. Where the glamour stops. I have shivered in an abattoir, on a cold January day in Scotland. And, under a searing Australian sun in December, I have tried to find a mobile signal ,whilst drenched in brine, from a morning spent in a turkey factory. I’ve trudged through a cabbage patch, on wet and wild spring day, in Lincolnshire. And once, I evacuated a factory,when we made a slight error with the chutney recipe. Turns out there is a reason they called it mustard gas in World War 1!

 I have always loved food; its stories and its history. Food has taken me a long way, from my childhood home in New Zealand, to Asia, to Europe and nearly back again to Australia.

Today I am increasingly interested in the tensions between consumerism, food ethics and sustainability. I like to write about the stories of food; focusing on their impact from the past, the present and the future, whilst never forgetting the comfort, conviviality and joy food can bring to us all.

I believe M.F.K Fisher said it best:

" First we eat, then we do everything else."

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