I lost my love of cooking after 12 years as a chef. Moving to a pig farm restored it
I was a keen-bean 15-year-old when I got my first job in a commercial kitchen in Canberra, raised on a diet of Jamie and Nigella and bursting with a passion for food.I dived headfirst into an apprenticeship and eagerly put my training into practice on my days off, cooking elaborate meals for friends and creating plenty of dirty dishes.But as the years went on, my love for the kitchen was dulled by a series of toxic workplaces, bullying bosses and long hours.Eventually, cooking for myself became a chore.I was more likely to eat cereal on my kitchen floor than do anything creative that would result in dirty dishes.
Despite its name, hospitality can be anything but hospitable to the people working in it.It is an industry that takes more than it gives: your time, your energy, your passion.There wasn’t a single moment that drove me out of the kitchen.It was more a case of death by a thousand cuts over a 12-year career.In the end, it was the pandemic that caused a hard reset: forced to stop working, I could take a step back and gain some perspective.
I realised I was deeply unhappy with the way I was living my life, but one kernel of truth shone through: I still loved food, and I was pretty sure the path to happiness would run though my stomach,How could I find a way back to the passion that had once sustained me? I wanted to get a sense of how the food world operated outside the kitchen, and with the land and produce, by working directly with farmers, cheese makers, market gardeners, bush foods experts and winemakers,Tired of working in a male-dominated environment, I cast a wide net to find women who could teach me more about food,Slowly, I began to build a list of internships, beginning with an artisan cheese maker in New South Wales,It was exciting to learn a new skill, but I was hungry for more.
My second internship in 2021 was on a pastured pig farm in regional Victoria: Jonai Farms and Meatsmiths.Pigs here were raised outside in paddocks, free to express their natural piggy instincts.Butchery was also done on site, so I would learn how to raise pigs and prepare carcasses into cuts for sale.On arrival at the farm, I was shown where I’d be sleeping for the next two months: a converted shipping container furnished simply with a bed, dresser, slow combustion stove, sink and composting toilet.For showers and meals, I would walk a few metres to the main house, which had a generous kitchen with a large stove, butcher’s block island and cast iron pans hanging from hooks.
I couldn’t help but compare it with the last kitchen I’d worked in: all stainless steel and hard edges, with a too-small cool room, far removed from customers,This farmhouse kitchen felt warm and expansive, with a long communal table,Meals were organised by rota among the farm’s occupants: owners Tammi and Stuart and their teenager, fellow intern Mads, and two farm hands,Despite being a pig farm, meals were often vegetable-based, with the philosophy of eating better meat less often,We cooked local pine mushrooms in plenty of butter and tossed them through pasta; lentil and vegetable soups warmed our bellies on the coldest days.
We ate family-style, passing around platters of glistening roast potatoes cooked in pork fat, and homegrown bitter greens and herbs.The sheer range of homemade condiments was a fermenter’s dream: kimchi, giardiniera, fermented garlic and chilli made from the yearly harvest.On desserts, we dolloped fresh cream provided by the resident dairy cow; we poured local wines and home-brewed beers liberally, generously.At restaurant kitchens, I was lucky to snatch a few bites of something while perched on a milk crate behind the back door.Staff meals were hurried and treated as an inconvenience.
On the farm, eating together was a chance to connect.Here, it felt like having a dinner party with friends every night, sharing nourishing food from a ramshackle assortment of vintage plates.I realised that part of the reason I’d fallen out of love with cooking was a lack of community.Several bosses over the years had referred to employees as “a family” but it had never felt that way.We were too busy, too stressed and too overworked.
At Jonai I was excited about the produce too: tracing the pork from paddock to plate, and picking fresh vegetables from the garden.I felt connected and nourished.When it was my turn on the rota, I was once again eager to get into the kitchen.I made fresh pasta, folded dumplings, dressed salads and made puff pastry from scratch – a skill I’d learned in kitchens, but had never bothered to do at home before.It was almost meditative: fold, roll, chill, fold, roll, chill.
I slowly caramelised onions until they were dark and silky, and heated a pot of milk, fresh from the house-cow, to make ricotta.Offcuts of the farm’s smoked bacon were sliced into lardons, and pan fried with brussels sprouts.I assembled a tart with care and baked it for dinner.I remember the first time I ever served a customer something I had made from scratch: it was a muffin but I still recall the electricity in my belly as I placed it on the table.Placing the onion tart on the table at the pig farm, I felt the same joy as that 15-year-old apprentice: proudly serving a dish to friends.
It felt like a homecoming,Lucy Ridge is the author of Fed Up, available now through Monash University Publishing (AU$36,99)
Osteria Vibrato, London W1: “Worth singing loudly about” – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants
Osteria Vibrato appeared last month on Greek Street, Soho, feeling to any passerby just like any other neutral-fronted Italian restaurant in this pasta-swamped part of the capital. Not much to see here. Pushing your face against the window wouldn’t achieve much, either, apart from an unsightly smear.Meanwhile, all the in-the-know people – that bunch of infuriating, generously paunched “foodies” who keep London restaurant gossip alive – understood that this particular osteria is the latest opening by Charlie Mellor, former proprietor of the Laughing Heart in Hackney, which opened in 2016 and very quickly became favoured by chefs and industry media types alike, because it took food very seriously, stayed open late and danced a dainty line between debauched and old-school cosseting. It sold pumpkin cappelletti with sage, and chicken liver paté with crisp chicken skin and jellied walnut liqueur
I lost my love of cooking after 12 years as a chef. Moving to a pig farm restored it
I was a keen-bean 15-year-old when I got my first job in a commercial kitchen in Canberra, raised on a diet of Jamie and Nigella and bursting with a passion for food. I dived headfirst into an apprenticeship and eagerly put my training into practice on my days off, cooking elaborate meals for friends and creating plenty of dirty dishes.But as the years went on, my love for the kitchen was dulled by a series of toxic workplaces, bullying bosses and long hours. Eventually, cooking for myself became a chore. I was more likely to eat cereal on my kitchen floor than do anything creative that would result in dirty dishes
Lamb shanks with orzo and rhubarb galette: Anna Tobias’ Easter recipes
Easter for me immediately brings to mind two things: cracking dyed red eggs together in the style of conkers (a Serbian Easter game that we play every year) and lamb. We always eat lamb at Easter lunch, and I suppose that simply harks back to religious tradition. Today’s lamb shank dish is a wonderfully straightforward and moreish take on a popular Greek recipe. I’ve gone for rhubarb for pudding, because it’s just so representative of this time of year – it’s also very pretty on the eye and a treat to eat, too.Prep 15 minCook 2 hrServes 650ml olive oil 6 lamb shanks Sea salt and black pepper 3 sticks celery, washed and finely chopped2 onions, peeled and finely chopped3 garlic cloves, 2 peeled and finely chopped, the other peeled1 tbsp dried oregano200g tinned chopped tomatoes (ie, ½ tin)375ml white wine 300g orzo 1 lemon 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves pickedHeat the oven to 185C (165 fan)/360F/gas 4¼
Best thing I ever ate? My first In-N-Out burger in LA
They say you never forget your first time, but for most of us, this doesn’t apply to cheeseburgers. We can’t really remember our first cheeseburger, because we start eating them at such an early age, before the memory centres of our brains are fully formed. In fact, in Wisconsin (“America’s dairyland”) babies are traditionally weaned on a fortifying diet of cheeseburgers, bratwurst and fondue, along with little sips of lager, just to make sure we acquire the taste.But while I may not be able to recall the particular details of my very first cheeseburger, the sense-memories of them are embedded deep within my subconscious. The perfect flavour-chord of ketchup, mustard and pickles on molten cheese and juicy beef occupies the same psychological space as the peppery cinnamon-and-clove aroma of my father’s Old Spice and the warmth of my mother’s hug
Reheated rivalry: why I’m the champion of leftovers
There is nothing lovelier than seeing a cook do their thing. By “doing their thing”, I do not mean just going about kitchen work – that is often excruciating to watch (why are they cutting onions like that?) I mean doing their thing: their culinary equivalent of a Mastermind subject, that one dish or process that they do so well, and with such evident pride, that the most crotchety backseat cook is forced to shut up.Take my partner’s method for making fish-finger sandwiches, which involves frying the fish fingers in butter, then creating an in-pan sweatbox to melt artisanal cheese on to them and custom blending condiments. It creates, on average, as much washing up as a full cooked dinner. Others have a special pancake hack or carrot cake recipe, and people tend not to let these things go unnoticed – it’s always my salad dressing, possessive, but we forgive their hubris, because each of us has “A Thing” of our own
Helen Goh’s recipe for peanut and blackcurrant thumbprint cookies | The sweet spot
Niki Segnit writes in The Flavour Thesaurus that, while grape jelly is the familiar partner to peanut butter in the classic PBJ, she thinks blackcurrant, with its sharper, more complex character, would be a far better match for the fatty and salty peanuts. I couldn’t agree more, though I’ll admit I’m not entirely impartial: blackcurrant is my favourite jam. Here, it’s spooned into the centre of a tender, peanut-crusted shortbread, where it bakes into a glossy, slightly chewy jewel that sits in perfect contrast to the crumbly, buttery biscuit. It’s the sort of small pleasure I find myself returning to again and again.Prep 15 min, plus chilling and cooling Cook 35 min Makes 13110g unsalted butter, at room temperature50g caster sugar¼ tsp salt 100g plain flour, sifted60g ground almonds 1 tsp vanilla extract 60g salted roasted peanuts 60g blackcurrant jamPut the butter, sugar and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat for two minutes on medium–high speed, until pale and creamy
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