Where this all began…

My family doesn’t come with a big food background. Mum was the first of nine kids to be born in Australia to German Immigrants and is a completely self-taught cook. We are a typical Australian family with smatterings of differing cultures all meshed together. There are Aussie BBQs, German Christmas traditions, and when I married my Irishman, potatoes, stew & soda bread entered the mix, together in one, crazy family.

When I was a kid, we moved out of Sydney to a small, rural farming community in the Central West of NSW, where breeding lamb and beef became our everyday. And while I hated it at the time, I now realize it has shaped me into who I am today. Good, seasonal produce is what I cook with day in, and day out. While I don’t live by this to the extreme, it’s something I find quite natural.

Early on, I spent a few years training and working as a chef, both in Australia and the UK (where I met my Irishman) but eventually learned that cooking commercially just wasn’t my future.  I somehow convinced him to move back home and I now spend my days pottering around the store (“Martha’s” our family-owned, culinary & food store) teaching people about good food, and how to cook it. Oh, and did I mention pasta? Because ending the day with a big bowl of my favorite Boscaiola pasta and a glass of wine in front of Netflix is what my dreams are made of.

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