by Tessa Moriarty
One of the earliest and perhaps most pivotal experiences in the cooking life of Stephanie Alexander, started in her childhood, at home, in the kitchen.
Picture a young girl, at the table with her mother. Around them – bowls, cooking pans, wooden spoons, a chopping board, fresh produce, eggs, butter, sugar, flour, scales, a pot. Hear the mother talk about what she wants to create, the foods she is using, and what she is substituting in a new recipe she is trying. See the daughter listening.
‘I don’t have blueberries, so I’ll use rhubarb, that will be delicious,’ the mother says. See the light in her eyes. Hear the excitement in her voice as she tells the daughter how they’ll prepare and cook the ingredients. See the daughter now helping. Weighing, chopping, mixing. Now watch the two of them – daughter alongside mother – at the bench in the kitchen, on an adventure. Exploring, discovering.
Stephanie Alexander speaks with pride of the curiosity and enthusiasm her mother had about food. Of her mother’s courage and willingness to experiment, to create something different, new. Cooking food that Stephanie’s friends who came to dinner hadn’t heard of, let alone seen on a plate and eaten.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon inside the Coolart Observatory, an expectant and eager audience came to see and hear Stephanie Alexander (AO) and Jaclyn Crupi in conversation. From the outset of the sold-out event, it was clear that Jaclyn – herself a successful author and cook – had a great deal of respect for Stephanie, one of Australia’s leading authorities on food and food education.
As their conversation grew like spring vegetables in a garden – warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, nurtured by the soil, seasoned by time – I sensed a connection between these women that was grounded in their shared passion for good produce, appetizing food and uniquely creative cooking. Jaclyn knew her subject and the subject matter. Stephanie knew her food and everything about it. Jaclyn also knew what mattered to the audience. Her knowledge and enquiry elucidating highlights in the life of a cook who was driven to explore and experience life, the world, the world of food, and the stories of the people who grew and cooked it.
Stephanie Alexander was also driven to excel, and she knew the ingredients necessary for success. Tireless work, long hours, the belief in dreams and ideas, the courage to follow them through and the quest for the best from herself and others. How to create something exquisitely delicious and beautiful on a plate. But the taste and drive for perfection comes at a cost. The price one sometimes pays for greatness is not about the food but about relationship and love. About this, Stephanie is honest, humble.
Throughout their engaging dialogue, Stephanie took us on a whirlwind tour of her upbringing on the Peninsula, happenings in her home and school life, days at university, her journeys in France, London, and the UK. She tells us that ‘food defines your travels.’ Stephanie particularly loved France, where the delicate, fresh and rich flavours of French cuisine appealed to her, later using and adapting her experiences there in her iconic restaurant, Stephanie’s.
‘Food and the ceremonies around it, spoke to me,’ Stephanie recalls, as she talks about the importance of ‘an uncrowded plate’, and ‘making everything about the eating experience pleasurable.’ The way her mother made little jars of flowers for the tables in Stephanie’s first restaurant, Jamaica House. Jaclyn goes further to speak of Stephanie’s ‘incredible palate, her joy and understanding of flavour and the pairing of food’. Stephanie’s food inspired too – by her love of art. ‘I understand what works with what,’ Stephanie says, ‘how this enhances that … there always has to be something lovely to look at. Even my tea towels are beautiful.’
Stephanie Alexander has written more than twenty books, with a 30-year anniversary edition of The Cook’s Companion (with updates and new recipes) to be released in 2026. But she is perhaps most applauded and revered for founding the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation in 2004, following the success of the first pilot of this program for children in 2001.
The Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that supports early childhood services, and primary and secondary schools across Australia, teaching kids that growing and cooking food is fun. With a hands-on approach so that children and young people form positive food habits from an early age.
We are privy to a story about two little boys in the school kitchen. One has just prepared a beetroot dip (from beets he grew and picked from the school garden) and urges the other to try it. ‘Go on, have some,’ he says with expectation. But his friend beside him, upon looking at this deep red magenta-coloured mix (that he possibly hasn’t seen or tasted before), with a cautionary look on his face, shakes his head, in earnest replying: ‘Oh no, I don’t think I will.’ Not perturbed, his friend – the maker of the dip – with hand on hip, says: ‘but you have to, I made it myself!’ And so, his little mate does, and of course, he loved it!
As did we, the audience – the story of the boys and their beetroot dip that is. But also, the conversation between two magnificent cooks, and the courage and determination of a remarkable woman who – perhaps taught by her mother in the family kitchen or known to herself from an early age – understands that food is so much more than fuel.
