MANILA, Philippines - Who is the Australian chef, restaurateur and food writer best known for The Cook’s Companion, an alphabetical guide to ingredients cooking, and for her national program that aims to develop healthy eating habits among children?
After studying to become a librarian, she left Australia at the age of 21 to see the world, which at the time for her was France. Inspired by French cuisine, she opened her first restaurant, Jamaica House, in 1964 at the age of 21, and later Stephanie’s in the Melbourne inner suburb of Firzroy in 1976.
Four years later, the restaurant moved to the beautiful National Trust Building, and the timing of this move coincided with an increased interest in food with the nouvelle cuisine movement in France inspiring Australian chefs, the rising of the food media, and the general affluence of the early Eighties.
In 1985, she established her first book, Menus for Foodlovers, but it was the publication of her fifth book, The Cook’s Companion, in 1996 that established her as a food writer. The Cook’s Companion was a product of her growing belief that, despite all the surface interest in restaurants and fancy food, there was very little understanding of what to do with fresh food in their daily lives.
The book was a best-seller and became a television series for ABC.
Other books like A Shared Table (she visited every state in the country to highlight culinary diversity) and Cooking and Travelling in Southwest France were also best-sellers.
In 1997, she opened Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder, an informal cafe, cheese room, and produce store, to create a warm and accessible neighborhood cafe and food shop and a center for interesting food events, an exciting new concept that succeeded.
But perhaps her greatest contribution to the food industry is The Kitchen Garden at Collington College. Her preoccupation with the way children do, or do not, learn about food led her to develop a comprehensive gardening and cooking program in this inner city Melbourne school.
Established in 1981, this has since evolved into a national program to be introduced into public schools in Australia to educate Year 3 to 6 children on how to grow, cook, and share fresh food and promote healthy eating habits.
“It is my belief that the earlier children learn about food through example and positive experiences, the better their food choices will be in life,” she said.
She has also published The Kitchen Garden Companion, which she describes as “a book for all families, with that hope that many will want to garden together, cook together and, above all, eat together.”
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