Formation

When I was about twelve, we had just moved to a small country town, Inglewood, right under Mount Taranaki. My parents had sold the dry stock farm and purchased a dairy farm so I could attend high school without boarding. I went from a school of seven students to a school of 450. I was so shy that my eyes would well up with tears when I had to speak in front of my classmates.

High school was great but it felt like a means to an end as I already knew what I wanted to do for a career. A highlight was home economics where I could actually do some cooking, and the teacher, Janet Marshall, was really supportive of my dream to become a chef. She was a lovely, generous person and had the ability like so many cooks of that generation to instinctively coax soulful flavour out of humble ingredients.