Why Pink?

I was recently asked to provide my bio for a symposium, and most of which follows comes from that. However, it doesnt really explain why I'm The Pink Cook - the simple answer is colour is important, and Pink makes me happy, it makes lots of people feel happy - and good food does the same. 

 

I was determinded not to cook as a teen. It was what mothers did and I wanted to be independant and explore my world. However at 17 when I hosted my first dinner party and discovered that it gave me great pleasure to cook for others. Fortunately it looks like others enjoyed to eat what I cooked. The seeds were sown. 

I had grown up with a great appreciation for food. My mother is a briliant cook, she was always reading about different countries food and working hard to introduce it to our family. "Champagne tastes on a beer budget" was one of the earliest things I recall my mother saying to me when I tried and liked new food.

 

While my first career as a Stylist at Australian House & Garden Magazine was based around my love of interiors and architecture, it introduced a world I could never have imagined growing up as child in rural Australia.  

 

While I give much credit to my Dad for initially instilling in me the desire to travel and do things differently to others. It wasn't really until we; Nik, my husband since 1990 and Charlotte and Gen, who were 13 and 10 at the time, (that desire not to be married or a mother didn't last for too long!) moved to Hong Kong in 2008 that I really started to explore the world. I now know that was the single thing that most shaped my world - i am very much a global citizen and proud to be an expat. And that is also where The Pink Cook took shape. I previously wore a reasonable amount of pink, had a kitchen painted pink, and at one time dyed my hair pink but in HK I drove a pink convertable, and had the most outragus pink fingernails. I also started to share my love of food with others on tours through the wet markets, pink shopping trolly in tow, which were followed by cooking the exotic ingredients we had purchased together. I also took the opportunity to cook with others and learn their families dishes. But most importantly I was able to attend several immersion cooking schools as we traveled, shop with locals and cook what I bought. I began to write my own recipes.

 

From Hong Kong we moved to London, and I learned the art of Charcuterie at River Cottage and started to teach teens who were preparing to leave home for Uni. And a friend and I ran the "Cooking Show" a day where eight parents from the girls international school would demonstrate their national dishes before 50 plus women would enjoy lunch together. I learnt so much!

 

We moved back to Sydney for three years where I established a cooking school. I loved having a special place where groups of people could enjoy the social side of cooking together. i finally had a space for my cookbook collection and i loved it when someone tried something they thought they wouldnt like - and loved it! because its often thet way something thats cooked that changes our perception of it. Most of all I really enjoyed working with the young mums as part of Two Good, an amazing social enterprise founded by the equally amazing Rob Caslick. And then in 2017 Nik and I decided to return to the UK; this time to Birmingham. The cooking school came with us (now after three years in storage its been unpacked at Eat Make Play) but the girls both choose to live in Melbourne. To say I love Birmingham as much as I did Hong Kong would be an understatement. It is a city with infinate potential and we are locals rather than expats. 

 

Along the way I had also become involved with the Slow Food movment, thanks firstly to my first Editor Beryl Clarke Marchi in 1986 when an Italian jurnalist was protesting the opening of MacDonadls in Rome. Slow Food is now an international movement that champions Good, Clean & Fair Food for All. Never thinking that it would become the thing that drives me, or defines me. Food well that's obvious otherwise I'd be The Pink Stylist ... but it's the five other words in that ethos that are really important to me. 

Good - the pleasure that food gives me should be somethinbg all people should be able to experience. 

Clean - our planet and our children's futures depend on us all working to stop Climate Change, and care for our planet. Mother Earth made a deal with us that she would feed us if we looked after her seeds and her soil - it's time we kept our side of the bargin. 

Fair - my travels have shown me the world can be unjust and my parents taught me that if you have the abilty to make a change for the better, you should. So knowing that what i say and do might mean a farmer gets paid fairly for their crop and that all people should have access to good food, well i'm in.

But it is overwhelmingly the for All that is the driver. 

 

And the Bio ?

Well if you want to know more about what I'm doing now . . .

 

                Have a read here for the bio or catch up with some of my stories in my blog.