Working on my book
Getting back into book writing
I mentioned a while ago that I was writing a recipe book - you may remember that I had a photographer here for a little while. That was a spectacular failure, and kind of put me out of the mood to continue for a little while. Recently I started a course with Allegra Chapman (she/her) about getting creative. I have also been feeling quite stuck with my substack writing too, so have hoped that doing the course might get me motivated again on both fronts. It’s been helping and today I spent most of the day working on my book.
Where I was getting stuck with the book, is that I want it to be more than recipes. It will have a little more about living a homestead/sustainable/permie/regenerative etc lifestyle. The more I write, the more confused and potentially self sabotagy (is that a word) I get. I will do it!
Anyway, this is something I wrote trying to get my mind around what I may want to write…….but a pretty picture of cows first…….
When did my food journey begin? I love learning about food and different cultures and how they cook. Ingredients may be the same, but it’s the way they are put together that really defines different cultures. The spices that are used, what works with what……how do you learn that? Some of it is intuitive and some is learned I suppose. But if you’re not exposed to it, you’ll never learn or even never have the desire to learn more.
We ate a pretty simple diet when I was a kid, although thinking back Mum was a little adventurous. We lived in the country and our local town was small. Mum was well known as a good bakery cook and sold biscuits and cakes to the locals. She did a little catering and my sister and I had to help, but I never really started to cook until I had left home.
One of my early jobs was cooking in a Western Queensland Pub. Our main clientele were truck drivers so I learnt to cook steak and chips and eggs! Some customers ate veggies but not many. The steak would be as big as one half of the plate, the other half was chips and then two eggs sat on top of the chips. Then I moved to a slightly bigger town where proper meals were cooked. I really could have learnt more there, if I wasn’t so interested in having a party life……The old cook there was very good and I can still remember her Steak Dianne. She would keep the garlic chopped up in oil and I can’t really remember what sort of oil as back then (1984) olive oil was still fairly new to Australia. She would use this oil to cook the steak, adding some of the garlic in, then cream and Worcestershire sauce.
The next job I got was as a jillaroo/nanny and the lady I worked for was a pretty good cook. This was also where I met Kim and that’s an interesting story I might share one day. We had been seeing each other for a little while when I thought I should cook him a meal. My boss suggested cooking a whole baked fish. She knew that Kim loved fish and even though it’s a really simple way to cook it, it looks a little fancy and just about always turns out well. I did cook it like she said and he must have liked it as we’ve been married for over 40 years and I still cook it like that……
How to win a husband/lover/friend with Baked Fish – Take a whole fish and slice some Garlic, Onion, Tomato and Lemon (you can chop up some herbs as well) Place this under, inside and on top of the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dot some Butter on top and a drizzle of olive oil over the lot. Cover with a lid or some foil if cooking in a baking dish, or place on a baking paper lined piece of alfoil and wrap it up, and bake. How long to bake for depends on the size of the fish. Test it by putting a fork in and pulling the flesh apart a little.
Kim and I went out to restaurants a bit, which really started me thinking about how food can taste and exposed me to different cultures and flavours. We would go to Western Australia to see Kim’s mum and sister and as his sister was married to a Sri Lankan, I suddenly discovered spice! I would shop for spices before coming home as it was impossible to get anything like that in Rockhampton. You could not even buy coconut milk in cans then. I had Chairmaine Solomon’s “Complete Asian Cookery” and she taught me to make coconut milk with desiccated coconut, which I did for many years before cans became available.
I would read, listen and watch anything to do with food, I still do! People would give me recipe books as presents, I’d watch all the lifestyle channel food shows, TV shows like Gourmet Farmer and River Cottage were firm favourites. Oh, and of course The cook and the chef! Maggie Beer is one of my all-time favourites.
But now I just like to grow food, cook food, preserve food, and write about food! And that’s what my book will be about! It will be like a walk through my day. Most mornings start with milking a cow or two or three, and continue into gardening or preserving and caring for all the farm animals we run. We are pretty self sufficient and I believe that I have plenty of knowledge to share about growing and cooking food - whether it be animal or plant. I want to share some of that knowledge, but most importantly I want people to be inspired to take back some control of their food - whether they grow some or just source food from ethical sources.
If you would like to support me in writing this book, please consider taking out a paid subscription to my newsletter. You get extra recipes and will get my everlasting gratitude.
