a bit about me

A long time ago, I used to be a town planner but discovered that I was much better at cooking than planning. Cooking or being a chef was never on my radar as a career option, and I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if I had discovered my love for food at a younger age. But perhaps by now, I might have been jaded and bored instead of still being inspired and really, truly loving it. At the beginning of my career transition, I was baking and preserving constantly. When the shelves in our house became weighed down by jars of jam and chutney, and we could no longer consume the amount of food I was making, I started Julia's Pantry, selling at a local farmer's market. Since then, I've studied gastronomy, had a cafe and taught cooking classes and am now back to having a market stall and cooking classes, as well as spending far too much time reading and talking about food.

My husband and I moved from Brisbane to Tasmania's far south in early 2020. We swapped hot, humid weather and sub-tropical produce for the cold and wet and a very short growing season. We live in an 1890s timber cottage on a couple of acres that was once an apple orchard in the little town of Geeveston. Producers surround us. We have access to plenty of foraged ingredients and live in a community that thrives on homegrown fruit and vegetables.

Along with cooking, I've rekindled my joy of writing. My weekly newsletter is available on substack; I have a column in Forty South magazine and am releasing my first cookbook in May 2023.