As long as I can remember I have loved food and all aspects of preparing it. I gained an appreciation of cooking seasonally from my Nanna, a country cook replanted in the city who grew most of what we ate in her ‘pocket handkerchief’ size suburban garden. I later became engrossed with the young talented Australian chefs, brought to me on beautiful glossy pages of Vogue Entertaining and Australian Gourmet Traveller. I unleashed my passion for what looked so delicious on the pages of those most awaited magazines on boyfriends, friends and family, too often over-feeding them I’m afraid. So – how was it possible I didn’t end up cooking, or at least in the food industry?
IT Corporate life not cooking became my career, and apart from a few joyful (interim) years of working in a high-end cookware shop and attached cooking school, as well as a short sojourn into catering, I have followed that path for over 30 years. In the words of James Barrie in Peter Pan….”Nothing is really work unless you’d rather be doing something else”…. and during these years I never gave up the desire to do that ‘something else’ and become a real cook. At every opportunity I cooked for family, friends and colleagues and my dreams of one day studying to become a chef remained very much alive.
Now at the ripe old age of ‘fifty-something’ I am finally following my dream and in February this year I will commence a four day working week, providing me an opportunity to study Commercial Cookery (part time)! I am extremely lucky that my company has allowed this flexibility and that all the stars have aligned. I look forward to sharing my adventure of becoming a trained cook (still can’t use the word chef)… I hope you enjoy my journey – I know I will 🙂
Bon Appetit & happy cooking,
Kathryn