Hi and welcome!
Where to start? One minute my daughter was yelling, “Mum, I can’t fix your midlife crisis!” and the next minute I was standing in the Shed on Great Australian Bake Off.
And what a midlife crisis fix that was!
‘Live To Eat’ versus ‘Eat to Live!’
Honestly, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t preoccupied by food and my next meal. I thought that was normal. But then I discovered that the world is made up of two kinds of people, those who ‘Live To Eat’ and those who ‘Eat to Live.’
What, eat for sustenance only? Who does that?
EXACTLY, WHO-DOES-THAT!
This ‘Live to Eat’ kid grew up in a small town in Canada. My mom was raising four kids on her own and what little allowance I had was spent on exotic foods that my mom couldn’t afford. Not chocolates or lollies, I was buying coconuts, avocados, and pineapples!
At 15, I started my culinary career with my first job as a carhop at a drive-in fast food restaurant. Working in the restaurant industry helped me fund my education and a gap year in Australia, where I fell in love with both the country and a one particularly gorgeous, bronzed Aussie. At one point, I was running a busy bistro in Brisbane full time while trying to finish my law degree.
Despite the demands of my new professional life and then a growing family, I never stopped thinking about food and, along the way, I became a pretty decent cook. Whether it was putting on a spread for 50 or a 20 minute post-work meal for the family, I could do it blind folded without breaking a sweat.
But who was I and what was I going to do ‘when I grew up’? Lawyer, wife, mum, public servant, business partner, empty nester?
Who plans a mid-life crisis anyway?
My mid-life crisis had poor timing as it happened to coincide with a pandemic and two distinctly unhappy women stuck in a house on the Gold Coast. Our daughter Ellen was stuck at home in 2020 graduating from her American university via Zoom and with me being unhappy with just about everything and everyone. Thus the occasional shouting match.
No, it’s not a ‘the pandemic turned me into a baker’ story! But, in 2020, someone special was getting married and needed a wedding cake.
Previously, the only layer cake I had baked came out of a box but I volunteered for the job anyway. After some monumentally failed test bakes, I learnt that you can beat a sponge cake to death, frosting tastes better made from a meringue, and like middle-aged women wedding cakes needed a bit of structural support.
My sudden epiphany was not that I could bake a pretty wedding cake (photo below) but that baking allowed me to rediscover my creative self. A self that I had left behind at the law school door.
And then the discoveries continued. What, you can take pictures and videos of the food you love to make and share them? Who invented that? What, do you mean Instagram was created over a decade ago?
The Great Australian Bake Off – Season 6
Then the social media gods served up a notice that BBC and Foxtel were looking for home bakers to appear on the Great Australian Bake Off Season 6. As a Bake Off die-hard, I had seen every episode (in most cases twice), including all the British, Kiwi and Canadian seasons ! I knew my time had come at last – Bake Off was calling me!
Appearing on Season 6 of the Great Australian Bake Off the most exhilarating and harrowing roller coaster ride of my life! I left the Bake Off Shed having made lifelong friendships with a bunch of home bakers and gained loads of respect for the professionals working in television.
And I left the show with my head bursting with plans for my post-mid-life crisis life!
Blogging, my happy place!
I believe I have found my happy place. I can’t think of anything I would rather do when I grow up than living a creative life through sharing my love of cooking and baking.
Welcome to my recipe blog, I appreciate you visiting and maybe trying a recipe or two!
