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A twenty year anniversary is traditionally marked with porcelain. To be honest I didn’t know this until I started to hunt for a cute literary device and it seems I found one. Why is this relevant? I moved to London on June 6th 2006 (yes, 06/06/06) setting in motion a chain of events that would see me well fed for twenty years and counting.

My celebratory plates of the last week (honestly, any excuse) say something of my love of offal, pubs, and the informal. Not to mention this city, its diversity, history, its culinary promise. Pickled tripe in the bar at St John in Clerkenwell; lamb heart au poivre at The Shaston Arms in Soho; fatty lamb skewers at Silk Road in Camberwell; a proper chippy tea at the The Fryer’s Delight on Theobalds Road where they still fry in beef dripping. There were a lot more plates but you’ll get those in an upcoming rundown of goings on in London.

Adjacent in theme, I threw glassware into the anniversary for good measure, as I downed great negronis at Brown’s Hotel before and after the Guild of Food Writers awards; lukewarm Camden Hells during an earsplitting Sugar gig at The Clapham Grand; table side martinis and gorgeous wine selections at Osteria Vibrato, pretty new to Soho and a meeting of my Australian life with London; many pints of ale, and my old love Guinness, as I ducked into pubs I’ve known and others that I’m just getting acquainted with.

A feeling of hope and excitement surged through me as I drove my rental car down Upper Street in Islington (windows down and early Jamie T playing loud). A new life is how it felt with a move away from my university city after ten years, my first home in the Capital and a place that would lead to meeting my people, my future wife, and draw me eventually to Australia. That flat-share was also the scene of The Great Lasagne Heist, Foie Gras Gate and what is just known as Bin Chicken. Each one a cautionary tale in how flat-share relationships can sour, split and in the case of the chicken, putrefy.

Meeting up with an old girlfriend in my first months in London she unintentionally announced my living situation to the swanky City bar we were in. “YOU’RE LIVING ON ST JOHN STREET!” She was suitably impressed and to be fair I was also pretty impressed with what I’d found at the same price of a room at the far reaches of the Northern Line. A shoe-box but one where you could see the dome of St Paul’s from just down the street (a moment that made me giddy). There always seemed to be a film crew at work on weekends or late nights. From my window I could see the Clerkenwell Medical Mission, an iconic location from About a Boy, the quintessential North London tale of the time. I saw the David Cronenberg film Eastern Promises being shot at the Smithfield Market end of the street one night, the grittiness a fit for Viggo Mortensen as a Russian mafia enforcer. It wasn’t until I saw The Bourne Ultimatum that I realised I'd seen them filming on Hatton Garden. I’d drink regularly in the bar that Guy Ritchie used as Sting’s place in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Vic Naylor’s is now sadly lost to time and a couple of failed enterprises. The pubs were great, I had my favoured spot at The Peasant (also now closed), and there was “the restaurant place that does baked goods and a beer.” I was fully unaware that it was St John, and that I’d go on to write about it over twenty years.

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I came to London with no notion to write, in fact my motivations were a change of scenery (I felt stalled) and to make money. As a 27 year old working in banking I was surrounded by wealth and many who either had it or gave the impression they did. I recalled to a friend over the weekend that twenty-something me had thoughts of buying a secondhand Porsche Boxster, even though he’d just moved to Central London, walked to work (a historic red brick Victorian monument to money on Holborn), and could hop on the tube to the west or east of the city in half the time than it would take to navigate the streets, find and pay for a parking spot. We laughed (kindly) at the thought of all this. I have no doubt it was all about the badge, the key fob, the outward sign of prosperity (even though it would have been on finance). It was also about being seen to be a good catch. “Oh, me, I drive a Porsche,” was maybe my idea of a good chat up line.

Common sense prevailed to a point. The equivalent money would be easily spent within several years on developing a knowledge that colleagues would draw upon regularly - a formidable grasp on where to drink (and later eat). There’s a longer origin story here (which will come at some point if you’ve not already heard it) but the short version is that it was eventually parlayed into writing a blog about pubs and beer (a move that felt quite radical for someone with a corporate career and suppressed creativity), which became paid (and unpaid) writing gigs, before having the confidence or chutzpah to pitch The Guardian.

Whilst much of my work has been in Australia, London lit the touch paper. It introduced me to the people who would shape my life and give me the confidence to write. It changed my palate with everything from a very salty first feijoada in a Brazilian cafe close to Petticoat Lane, to eating injera in Brixton, and learning the ways of parsley liquor at Robin’s Pie and Mash in East Ham. I even learned how to order at the Brick Lane beigel shops without drawing ire (be succinct). It still stands as a place that I look to for inspiration, education, and quite often nostalgia.

On that last point, I’ve revisited areas and places again and again when I return. There’s a comfort in retracing your steps over decades but it can be both limiting and bring with it sudden sadness when you’re now a solo traveller. Wandering through an old neighbourhood, without thinking, faced with the street where you had your wedding reception is, I can tell you, an unexpected gut-punch. So, on this visit I’ve stayed in different neighbourhoods, made memories, met new friends (and old), and have attempted to return to the past only sparingly.

London has often felt like an unanswered question. A what if. Could I have developed my career here in the same way? The answer depends on my confidence on any given day. For years I craved some degree of recognition here. It's home, it’s where it all started. Exactly what that would have looked like, I’m not sure. A few years ago I put that tangle of psychological bric-à-brac to one side and started to repeat a piece of advice that I often give to others, to run your own race. To do the work, good work, it doesn’t really matter where you are.

That’s not to say I don’t think about writing more in the UK. It was just that I wasn’t going to obsess as is my ADHD driven predisposition. Then, on Wednesday night I had a moment or two at the Guild of Food Writers awards. It’s not an event I’ve been to in the past but as I was here it seemed ridiculous not to attend, even if I didn’t quite get the casual vibe memo - turning up in a suit and being mistaken for both a member of The Royal Institution where it was held and then as an event sponsor, not a writer.

Pre-event I parked myself at the bar across the road at Brown’s Hotel, the kind of Mayfair establishment where you have to give a certain energy to get what you want. I ordered a negroni, speared many olives, and worked on the low level anxiety. Turning to look around the bar there were waves from a table that included Mark Diacono and Karen Barnes. There were voices in the room I recognised. Rather than feel that very particular schoolyard mortification of being Billy No Mates I just fell back into the thought of you’re here, well done. I also cast my mind back to the last time I was at Brown’s. It would have been 2007, I was on a date, thinking this is posh, before I was passed a name badge that read Max Brearley, Guardian Media Group. For several hours I suppose I cosplayed as a media executive. Whether this was my date forgetting that she had an event to attend, a test of my character, or a niche kink, I’ll probably never know. But it raised a smile as I speared more of those olives.

Post awards I chatted with Leyla Kazim who had hosted, I went full-on fan boy when I introduced myself to Sheila Dillon (as is proper protocol with ones heroes) and ended the night at a table back at Brown’s with award winners, nominees and for the second time in a week Felicity Cloake (who could be currently Googling restraining orders). I chatted to Xanthe Clay about my thoughts on Josh Niland and Saint Peter (gushing) and the newly minted Simpson’s in the Strand (steep but worth every penny). Looking at the picture above I had not a trace of imposter syndrome. That is progress. It made me think about how far I've come and gone, but also about what’s ahead.

I wrote on Instagram about my post on backing yourself and that “you don't know where it will take you, the people it will introduce you to, the stories you'll be able to tell because of it.” That can be said of making what become momentous moves. I wrote that you could be “the guys sat next to me as I type, moaning about tax regimes and the price of a starter. I'm sure their portfolios and balances are fat but fuck me they sound boring and empty (a fact that at least one of them must be aware of and wondering, what if?).” I was actually being kind, as they also bemoaned their partners for needing, sigh, support. Unfair and perhaps rude to earwig and all that but if you’re going to loudly put this into a small dining room then all bets are off, and besides, looking at them I saw another reality for myself. Maybe that was a what if. Wealthy, whiny and working to keep up with the demand for more, more, more.

Although I don’t live in London it still feels like coming home, a place that changed my trajectory in just six and a half years. It feels like much longer but I packed a lot in and I’ve also been coming here since I was old enough to have a Polaroid taken with E.T. My walks around the city, aided by Compeed and coffee, set off a chain reaction of taking notes and pictures, ideas for things to write, places to visit, memories of what has passed, the pain of loss and sometimes the fear of a ticking clock. But, again, it lit the touch paper, and the thought that my London story didn’t end when I left. A chapter ended. Who knows what those next London chapters will be over another 20 years.

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As I type the first draft I'm at Cafe Murano in Bermondsey, while for the final one and pushing publish less than 24 hours later, I'm in a pub in Soho, about to go for drinks with new friends. I've set myself a time limit and an instruction of publish and be damned.

Back at Cafe Murano, I've just met Mark Diacono and Felicity Cloake who are about to talk for Mark's monthly book club. I'm here for a few reasons. First, I love talks, and beyond the content I do like to look at the mechanics of an event, assess the headcount, do a vibe check, and think about all the peripheral revenue opportunities like book sales and marketing other events. It's my years of events and a belief that to make money these days you really do need to have that multi-hyphenate frame of mind - love it or hate it. And let's just say I have a few ideas brewing. I always have a few ideas brewing but these might actually see the light of day.

But, more so,  I'm a long time reader, first time caller, as such, in that while we've conversed digitally, I’ve never met Mark or Felicity in real life. When I started writing properly over 16 years ago there were a set of London writers that I admired and to be honest, envied. Felicity being one, James Ramsden, Tim Hayward, and many of the people who were writing for The Guardian's outlet for newer writers, the Word of Mouth blog. While my first pieces for that masthead were in the travel section I did hit the Word of Mouth blog pretty soon, and I remember distinctly thinking, 'fuck, I've made it.' This was the home of 'proper writers' like Felicity. Writing this I realise that I still have these thoughts.

I came to Mark's work a little later but I connected immediately with his style, his turn of phrase, and many of his reference points. Reading his Substack, Abundance has become a moment in my week. Like all great writers he puts you in the place, the feeling, the memory and you connect this back to your own history. We did also discover a strange coincidence in that while Mark recounted holiday memories of visiting East Lancashire cousins we were led to the fact that this was a few doors down from my own cousins who were like older siblings to me. So, we may have met in real life after all. Mark as perhaps the older kid with an exotic (southern) accent, and me the annoying kid who kept falling in the beck.

So, to the discomfort because this is all starting to sound like a love-in. I've been thinking about bluffing recently. When you start out in this game there's a pressure and maybe an expectation that you know everything from cooking techniques to the intricacies of regional cuisines, that you've been to the newest opening and therefore you have an opinion, a hot take. Possibly, this is a very male trait? Over the years I've realised that this is what we call in the trade, utter bullshit. There's something called research, there's the joy of discovery, of doing the job, and asking questions of experts. That’s the fun bit. Sometimes, in fact often, it's a good thing to give new things time in the restaurant and bar space. You don't need to know it all, but you need the desire to know. It can feel counter intuitive but you need to learn to lean into your ignorance.   

For me this falls into the basket of ego and a particular comorbidity: bluffing with other writers. A few years ago, when I'd done quite a bit of work on my overgrown ego I stood with some writers at different points in their careers. I was one of the more senior people in the room. It was interesting to see how they went about things. A few sparred, playing a game of oneupmanship that was of no value to anyone. Others just chatted amongst their peers, creating relationships that could be useful in future but also just had a good time (also essential). One did the latter but also gently picked my brain, interested in the mechanics of writing, and later in a quieter moment asked if we could catch up for a chat, so that they could ask all the questions that can’t be answered on the internet. I could see that they were pushing themselves, a lot. Feeling the discomfort. Of course, I said yes. I've worked with gatekeepers and people who want to keep you in thrall to them but my aim has always been to demystify.

From that experience and memories of mentoring I did in my corporate days (with the King's Trust) I was reminded that while you are playing the role of expert, advisor, mentor, there's always room for you to learn, to glean a gem of advice from others, and to admit (without envy) that they're in a position you'd love to find yourself. Vulnerability or humility is not weakness, it is its own gateway if you lean into it.

Although I apparently give off an air of comfort in turning up to things alone, in truth I have to force myself into and then out of discomfort and anxiety. So, I book the thing, turn up and sit in the busy room. I try to talk to the bar staff, to others, and most times I'm over myself in minutes. Sometimes I stew in the discomfort, knowing now that this is okay.  I talk too much, I say things I cringe-regret (but now just try to forget rather than cycle over it for hours) but I'm better for it, as is my career, and my life.

Maybe the final and most difficult point on discomfort is making things known. I wrote last year that whenever I've vocalised or put on the page things that could be embarrassing or shameful or a little indulgent it's brought nothing but good things. I constantly remind myself that if it’s happening or has happened to me, it’s happening to millions and that sharing a perspective or even a sliver of vulnerability can connect. And after all, connection is why we communicate.

As long as I've wanted to write and maybe as long as I've been able to read, I've had the desire to reach for a book with my name on its spine. One day, one day, one day. I have been known to stand in a bookshop, tap the spine or the cover of a book, and shorten that mantra to a very definite one day. I've had discussions with publishers over years, which has never quite got there. My ego and lack of commercial consideration the main cause (a bigger discussion for another day), but I have always taken something away, if not least the fact that I overcame the discomfort and the possibility for rejection and put myself in those rooms or those email chains.

Recently there are more and more ideas, and at least one has become 'a discussion.' I know that to make it happen I don't just need the idea and a bit of luck. I need to draw on advice. I need to be that young writer who turned to me and rode the discomfort. So, with my time in London I've been talking to people I admire, listening, and dare I say manifesting the shit out of that book spine. I booked a ticket to the Guild of Food Writers awards, I reactivated my lapsed membership, and after a few glasses of wine whilst waiting for Felicity and Mark to open proceedings I committed to a writing retreat in the South of France. An admission that I still have a lot to learn. I quietly said to myself 'fuck it, back yourself,' dropped the not inconsiderable deposit, and wrote a note for next-morning-me, which in part reminded me of the little boy who'd at first struggled with reading, who would marvel at the creased spines with names of people long dead and waiting to be discovered. So, sit in the discomfort often, say fuck it, and back yourself.

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I'd forgotten what it's like to be in a country that has sunshine in short supply, where winter often feels interminable. My first week in London was sunny but cool, then grey, and then somewhere between - the weather equivalent of the mood that my mum calls, "just bobbing along." I kept hearing from people that "the weather's going to take a turn." And when I say people, mostly strangers who would say it in a willing, hopeful tone, manifesting sunshine and warmth. Because, when you live on this island you don't completely trust the Met Office.

I've been freelance for about 13 years and with that has come a complete blindness to public holidays. In Australia most of them aren't scored deep into my psyche like the British ones. I don't will them to come so that I can have an extra day off as I did when I had an employer. I control that at will now and to be honest I do some amount of work every day of the year. I'd booked my dates for this trip without thinking about the Spring Bank Holiday this weekend. The consequence is of course that everybody has plans. But it means that I get to drift around London, duck in and out of coffee shops, galleries, and read the blue plaques at will, meander, marvel at things that I've seen many times before, and other things that I ask myself, how didn't I know this existed? There will be the weekend papers and many pubs. There will be scribbling and notes in my phone, and the inevitable thought of moving back to London. Then the realisation that life here isn't a Bank Holiday weekend.

On Friday (yesterday as I write), a week in, the sun seemed to properly break the clouds and give extra promise to the blue sky. I'm staying next to Regent's Park and my only job for the afternoon was to wander north-ish, through a bit of the 410 acres, towards Primrose Hill and see where I ended up. I laboured in my jacket for a while, having underestimated the heat from my air conditioned hotel room. When I whipped it off and lay it across my forearm I was slightly more in harmony with the scene of milky white midriffs, sun starved guns, and the one bronzed old man, possibly naked, though I suspect there were high cut Speedos, in his low slung foldable chair. He'd assumed the the turtle on its back gesture to the sky. Some paganistic offering to assure a sunny holiday weekend for his fellow sun worshippers.

I thought seriously about going to the zoo, my only real intention there to see the penguins and the giraffes. I can't think about penguins these days without remembering Martin Clunes coo over a juvenile Little Penguin (that's the actual breed, Eudyptula minor, also known as the Fairy penguin) and him deftly twisting its arse away from me as it projectile pooped (that story and additional shitting dolphins for another day).

I got to the entrance of the zoo with a flood of parents more excited in some cases than the kids. I weighed up the undetermined cost of entry with just my want to see the penguins and giraffes, and the prospect of elbowing my way through a crowd as a lone middle aged man muttering "I've paid to see the fucking penguins as well."

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It all got a bit Pete and Dud in my head for a moment as I wondered whether I could negotiate a price.

I think we all know what happened next? Well, the short version is, pints. Just by the park gates, The Queens, a Young's pub, offers that solid assurance of a brewery owned boozer that's not going to thrill me but also will not make me lament, well, everything in the way that a shit pub can make me spiral.

My first choice beer is spitting foam and water from the tap, the line just cleaned, so rather than waiting (and thinking it seems), I go for a pint of Jubel (sounds like but is not Duvel). Their website dubs it "dangerously refreshing lager cut with fruit". It goes onto tell me that this beer was “born at après, bringing a feeling of extreme joy to all.“ Having drunk real ale for a week I'm certainly not the market here, but I can't really express the self loathing that this single pint of peach cut filth stirred up. There was no extreme joy. But hey, if the whole après ski fruity tosh is your bag I won’t judge, because I think of some of the things I drank in the name of craft beer many years ago, and well, I shudder.

Safely sitting on a later pint of Guinness, I tune into The William and Joseph Show. I'm convinced that podcast producers often pitch celebrity concepts as being just two blokes down the pub. Those blokes perhaps being Hugh Bonneville and Prof Brian Cox talking about men’s tailoring and the inflationary multiverse concept, or a discussion about badger baiting with Jeremy Clarkson and Guy Ritchie (mid pod you learn that one of them owns the pub). Well, there's no ads (just piss breaks) when you go to the actual pub and just listen to two non-celebs have a loud natter.

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To some, Friday's ep could be at first insufferable, but then a subtle study in male friendship over decades emerges, with segues into being barred from pubs, touching moments about recently deceased dogs, interludes to fuss over another patrons spaniel, and to call over to new parents that one day the baby in the stroller will tell them that they've ruined their life. Sounds obnoxious, but it was a moment where everyone in the room at the very least smiled (even the man who looked enough like Simon Pegg to get a thousand double takes) and perhaps said to the parents who'd fussed over where to tuck the stroller, welcome back to the world. It's also proof that one of the key functions of the public house is still working in some places. It's an intersection of community.

William keeps an eye on the door, where I've parked myself with a vantage point over inside and outside, the pavement tables full. I wonder whether he knows I'm listening, thinking, yeah he looks like one of those Substack Wankers. Then, "Giuseppe, let's go outside, I'll bring your drink." William moves swiftly to snag the table, while Joseph's movement is more laboured. He returns quickly to make sure he's got everything and that he gets his old friend to the table. There's a thread that runs through their conversation of decades and moments when they've leaned on each other.

Out of nosey bastard earshot, The William and Joseph Show is abruptly retuned to the more polarising one man monologue that is Phone Wanker. The volume on this is turned up as he has plugged his phone in next to me, in a pretty empty pub. He noisily eats crisps out of his shopping bag with a yoghurt in-between mouthfuls. Both are purchased elsewhere and he nurses what looks like a small bottle of mixer on ice, no spirit. He has the faint whiff of Nathan Barley (look it up) as he says things LOUDLY like "they didn't get Anne Robinson in," and "it's going to be epic, epic, epic," as if one epic isn't enough. He talks about TV production and while he has a number of conversations in his 20 minutes plugged in he’s also telling those of us around him that he’s in TV. It's all very 2006.

On the move, heading south there's a thought to swing back through the park and negotiate a price on those Humboldt penguins but I take the slightly wonky route via The Dublin Castle for another pint of Guinness and a moment to consider the music that's come out of this Camden pub. Well, it was more about that pint of Guinness to be honest. Framed photos and posters of Madness gives you part of the story but then there's the likes of Blur, the Arctic Monkeys, and Amy Winehouse as players and punters. I'm glad it's retained its own brand of grime, a mix of diehard locals, indie kids and an ageing two-tone devotee pointing out things of interest to a surprisingly engaged son.

There’s a moment of measure in this impromptu pub crawl when I consider a scoop at The Hawley Arms and the Good Mixer which aren't far down the road. I head closer to home and The Queen's Head & Artichoke, grab a pint of Black Sheep, a plate of octopus, a lovely side salad and good patatas bravas. There’s a surprise party, a group that are I’d say the age I was when I first moved here. I can see all those characters and dynamics that you get with a group that’s probably made up of old uni mates, flatmates, new mates and work mates, perhaps even mates of mates.. There’s the quiet bloke carrying unrequited love or lust for the girl who's quite obviously into the guy who looks like he wears a branded gilet with his hedge fund chums during the week and is more interested in himself. There’s the girl who when asked how she’s going cycles through her latest Hinge dates, and the guy on the periphery looking anxious and downing a wedge. To them, the long weekend and Friday night is ahead of them, which could involve one of those shitty foil BBQs, a slab of Jubel, and some questionable romantic decisions. For me, it’s one more pint of Black Sheep, then back to the hotel for a packet of wine gums and the end of MasterChef. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I live and write on Wadandi Boodja, home to the Wadandi people, Traditional Owners of this corner of south west Australia. Saltwater people, their connection to land and sea is deep, and continuous. I acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging.

Before we get into things. Over the next few months Between Meals will be getting some much needed love, a bit of a refresh. Publishing will be more regular, and I’ll be bringing you the “inside baseball” stuff that I often talk about from food media and hospitality. There’s a draft folder that’s heaving with memoir based first person work and some archive pieces that will get a new life. There’s interviews that I’ve allowed to gather dust but that I feel are no less relevant from time on the shelf and newer ones as well. I’m going to weave video and audio through all of this where I think it adds value. There will also be what could be best termed as field notes, first from the United Kingdom, and then beyond.

I’m coming to you from London. Telling you this fills me with more joy than you can know. Or perhaps you do know? You’ve left a place that is more than just the place you were born, a place you chose, that reshaped you, where you found your people, figured out who you wanted to be, which you then left and have always wondered whether you should have stayed, or at least what that version of you would be doing now.

I’ve tried and failed to write how I feel about this city so many times but I never feel like I get there, many attempts saved as drafts or just deleted straight off. Trite and over sentimental. But originality can be a difficult ask with what is such a common experience, and I am at heart a very sentimental person (as evidenced by boxes of old letters, ticket stubs and what not). Maybe I’ll never quite nail it, but here’s a moment in time. My first 12 hours back in London.

Friday morning, I land at 4.30am, having been in transit for over 24 hours. Just onto the air-bridge not even on solid ground, my pace notches upward, and I weave through journey weary passengers getting their land legs. So long suckers, or at least until the baggage claim.

There’s a mode of thinking and movement in many big cities that’s perhaps common but also slightly different for each. At Heathrow my switch is flipped as the cool morning air hits me on that air bridge. An element of impatience for anyone deemed to be unnecessarily slow moving is present but suppressed. I just hold the superior feeling of knowing that I move at a speed that would mark me out as not a tourist. Something that probably holds too much weight for me and is maybe something for the therapist. No doubt it’s all tangled up in London being a part of my identity during and after I lived here.

I handle my suitcase with a degree of control that says, seasoned traveller. I don’t impede others, perform the complex transition from wheeling at my left to my right with dexterity, and when I’m performing an overtaking manoeuvre of a family with a pushchair and bags I take a cautionary glance over my shoulder. I’d say it’s akin to having your advanced driver certification. You’re welcome.

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Sound-tracking my return is an important detail. It must be something that resonates. There’s the obvious Clash classic London Calling, or a little early Madness, Squeeze, The Jam. But I go north and the eponymous debut from The Stone Roses. Stood at the carousel I’m struck that Elizabeth My Dear really isn’t a banger. I allow myself to skip. I’m told by the TfL guy to wait for the Elizabeth Line to open before he looks back down at his phone. But I know better (because I’m not a tourist, remember). I can take the Piccadilly and then the Central Line to St Paul’s, changing at Holborn, knowing that it won’t be busy, and that I’ll be on the move not kicking my heels on a grimy, cold concourse.

At one time I’d have known the order of the stations as we headed east but now this kicks in around Zone One and I make mistakes. I’m not a neuroscientist (or podcast guest as we commonly know them now) but I imagine that the functional and structural neuroplasticity involved in knowing the complexities of London’s travel network from the Underground to Overground, an added layer of regional trains, surface buses, the odd river boat, knowing when to just ride or walk, is a positive part of city life. I’d always roll my eyes at older relatives as they’d discuss which A and B roads they took to get to what every family function we were at but now I think that ability to navigate without GoogleMaps in your ear or on a screen is one of life’s diminishing skills.

The tube is a meeting of shifts. Security guards, cleaners, retail and catering staff, trades, receptionists, first responders, nurses and a couple of cabin crew. I lived on St John Street when I first lived here 20 years ago. Close to Smithfield Market, porters, cabbies, and clubbers would intersect. There was a feeling of both life happening and historic continuity, the market (soon to relocate) having been there in some form for over 800 years. I remind myself to take an early walk because moving through the city as the daytime and nighttime economies brush shoulders before the rush has always been something that’s fascinated me.

Emerging from the tube at St Paul’s it’s a blue sky but bitter morning that rewards a brisk walk, the workers of London, rugged up with hoods up, shoulders hunched. To them it’s an unseasonably cold day in May, but to me it’s the weather I most often crave, bringing a contented smile to my face, a lightness, and not a drop of sweat. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, 24 hours in transit, but I have a moment of welling up. Sentimental you see. I’m home.

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I skirt around the perimeter of the cathedral, stop to snap a bad picture or two and then head towards the river, the sight of which is a further lift. I’ve got a 4pm check-in and while dropping my bags for storage the young guy on reception tells me that there’s no scope for it being anytime before. He is definitive on this. Not a chance pal, because we’re very, very busy. Not even an hour before? No. I want to point out that with a little organisation and dare I say customer service, the fact that they’re busy doesn’t necessarily mean my room couldn’t be ready. In fact are they not just heading to a 4pm bottleneck of check-ins? I leave it. I am the chill seasoned traveller, remember, not a tourist.

I sit in their Thameside coffee shop drinking cortado after cortado, listening to the barista and the server talk about an exhibition in Dalston or Peckham, New Cross or somewhere that I once knew. It would be an easy line to make some generational in my day observations, but I’m struck by the continuing cycle of the city. I know from accent alone that they’re not from London and they’re currently in the stage where they’re not quite empty vessels but the city is topping them up.

I reply to the minimum of emails and finish a few commissions before a walk beckons. I’ve promised myself that I will get the step count up, walking London being something I can do aimlessly for hours. I make my way across the bridge to the Tate Modern. It’s not yet open and a line has formed. I’m faced with a choice to line up like any obedient subject of His Majesty or go and find a pub. Of course there are other options but these are the two I present myself with. Can you guess which option won out?

A walk along the Southbank, stopping at the BFI to get paper copies of their monthly programme which I can flick through over coffee at some point. A way to disconnect. I sit and watch a while - the patrons not the pictures - and a memory pops up of buying a film magazine here that I’d written for - the first print piece I’d ever been commissioned on being about film not food. More memories shake free, some happy and others tinged with a sadness of people who aren’t in my life anymore. But we’ll always have London.

I stop myself using Google to find a pub. I may be rusty on the order of tube stations but I want to prove to myself that I still have the liquid Knowledge. Roupell Street is my answer and the Kings Arms. Fuck, I hope it’s still there. I navigate for a moment from memory and then resign myself to GoogleMaps as not to waste valuable drinking, sitting and pondering time. My situational awareness is also reset from country Western Australia where I’m tuned into bush fires, wildlife bounding across roads and all the other things that will kill you, to London Stuff, with thoughts of where are my bags at all times, dodging Lime bikes, minding the gap, the other things that will kill you, and avoiding chats about ULEZ cameras and the state of the nation (or at least the borough) with edgy randoms. `

A relief, the pub still stands, now part of a small collection of locals that I note for future reference and refreshment. There’s a group of old school tie types talking rugger as I push through the door and although they’re blocking there’s an immediate well mannered moving of bodies and utterances of sorry. I’m asked if I’m drinking or eating at Kanchana’s kitchen, the Thai dining room at the rear. I opt for the former and settle in to savour a hand pulled pint. Again, I am home.

A table talk politics and it seems I’ve found a rare breed of moderates with the ability of critical thought. I tune into an Irishman and a cockney (or at the very least an Essex or Kent boy) talking about an undisclosed business. ‘Your man is as slippery as an eel he is’ catches my ear as does, ‘I have a fella between Limerick and Cork’ the pronunciation of Cork almost lyrical. I could stay for hours, I do stay for hours, but eventually I take my leave, emerging back onto Roupell Street to the sound of birdsong from the railway arches at the rear.

I pass the old Citroëns down the street, one of them looking like a storage overflow for one of the residents, I navigate to Waterloo Bridge and prompt Siri to play a sixties mix. The opening of Waterloo Sunset as I walk across the bridge confirms that Siri is indeed a creepy geotagging motherfucker. I take the Strand eastward into Fleet Street, passing through the now unified pedestrian area by Somerset House, King's College London, and Bush House. It makes you imagine cities without traffic.

I pass the High Commission of India where I spent a chaotic yet strangely efficient afternoon getting a business visa some 20 years ago, and further along the now closed India Club, the iconic and time worn restaurant that traded for 70 years before it was lost to redevelopment. There’s the Old Bank of England, a pub connected to the Royal Courts of Justice, where I on occasion tagged along for Chambers drinks with a barrister friend, and the streets running to Holborn, where again I drank in pubs that had traditionally been a haunt of journalists and those called to the bar, sorry, the Bar.

Back to the hotel at 3pm, my friend from the early morning bag drop is nowhere to be seen, and lo my room is ready, an hour early. I stop myself from commenting, take myself upstairs for a shower and a change of clothes. I have a message to say that my partner in crime and inebriation of 20 years is in the lobby. David and I seemingly have a tradition now, which is that I land early, push through the day, before we sink more than a few pints, catch up on the time past because we’re hopeless at staying in touch, and have a grown up dinner with too much wine. It’s 4.30pm, I’ve been on the ground for 12 hours, I stride out of the lift, shake his hand and ask “where are we starting?“ I am home.

I live and write on Wadandi Boodja, home to the Wadandi people, Traditional Owners of this corner of south west Australia. Saltwater people, their connection to land and sea is deep, and continuous. I acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging.

I was ready this week to press publish on a different newsletter but this French fella entered the chat and like so many old white guys he just had to have his say. This is partly paywalled but a paid subscription gets you not just this post but the whole library. Over several weeks there’s a schedule of opinion pieces, archive bits and bobs, and interviews, as well as travel, dining and life missives. I’ll also be dropping some audio, starting with Yes Chef! Write and Wrong II with Max Veenhuyzen and Fleur Bainger. Please do think about signing up to Between Meals as a subscriber, free or preferably paid. There’s been no better time.

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It’s funny how things come around. It was just Saturday night when over drinks at de’sendent in Margaret River, I chatted with writer Cyndal Petty about all things food, wine and writing about it for a living. The subject of Michelin coming to Australia came up, and the very public debate last year about whether Tourism Australia and state bodies should stump up nearly $40 million ($17million coming from the peak body) over multiple years in order to bring the Franco-leaning guide to these shores.

If you’re not so acquainted with these things, you may be wondering why a fine dining guide owned by a tyre company with a net income of over $2.5 billion last year needs government assistance to get a foothold in a new market. Well, it’s just the way these things work it seems, from Michelin to TV shows and other media based opportunities. At the time Ben Liebmann (former Noma COO and man with his finger in many pies) wrote Who Really Wins When Michelin Comes to Town? In trademark Ben fashion it was pretty laser-focused and is well worth a read.

Back to Saturday, Cyndal called across the open pass to Evan Hayter the chef and co-owner at de’sendent as to what his take was. “I thought that wasn’t happening” was his answer. “Oh no we’re just discussing hypotheticals.” Like most chefs in the fine dining end of hospitality Evan was for it, although it was with a degree of, if it happens it happens and otherwise, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing for years.

Whatever the talk around Michelin, its relevance, and whether there’s a degree of pay-to-play in these deals, it matters for many in the hospitality industry. The desire to attain recognition from a guide that’s over 125 years old and woven through global dining lore is very strong. Not just for head chefs and restaurateurs, but for chefs of all levels, sommeliers and front of house. There’s a reason why every chef who has worked or staged at a Michelin starred restaurant has it front and centre in their bio.

Then, just a few days later the news dropped that Australia will get its first crack at Michelin, albeit South Australia will be the lone outlier, their state government having agreed on a yet to be disclosed figure to make it so. In Ben’s piece he referred to “bragging rights” for whole countries. For the time being that will be the sole preserve of South Australia. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about this country it’s the love of individual states sticking it to the others. Remember, this is a country that has a strange pride around the ability of its national cricket team to “sledge” their opponents. And the crowing (not quite sledging) has already begun.

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I mentioned a few days ago that I recently spoke in Bali at Nuanu Future Talks: Gastronomy Leaders. One of the headline panels was with two friends whose work (and work ethic) I am constantly in awe of.

I’d had a few comments in the last month as to whether there was a video or audio of it. My answer was possibly, whilst crossing my fingers that any visual record had been scrubbed by those Earth Sentinels I mentioned in my last post. I’m only just ok with hearing my recorded voice, so I’m not sure I could cope with both sound and vision.

Then, cleaning up my phone. Well, deleting things so that I could cram my photos of food and menus and visual reminders onto the memory, I found this very rough recording. I often set my phone going on panels as my own record of what has been said. The audio may be a little patchy in parts (we’re not wearing mics) and there’s the odd cough or table tap for those who are driven wild by bad audio.

My co-speakers on the International Space Station were Alexandra Carlton, a Sydney based journalist whose work you cannot miss if you’re engaged in Australian media, fly Qantas, and have an interest in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Alex is Oceania Chair for the list and talks a little bit to that during the talk.

Max Veenhuyzen, much like Alex, is a name known to many in Australia and far beyond. He’s a journalist (Gourmet Traveller, Good Food), co-author of the Burnt Ends cookbook, photographer and the person I most often get mistaken for (I’m thinking of trademarking the words ‘other Max’).

If you like the ramble, do share and consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you have thoughts, drop them in the comments. Also, do check out another convo with Max V and Fleur Bainger from Lawson Flats, the second of which is coming up in late April with myself as moderator.

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I live and write on Wadandi Boodja, home to the Wadandi people, Traditional Owners of this corner of south west Australia. Saltwater people, their connection to land and sea is deep, and continuous. I acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging.

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I’ve been asked a single question in many forms this past month. ‘Are you ever coming home’ is the jist of it; expressed by one friend as ‘still in Bali cu**?’ Yes, they’re Australian (don’t be offended, the C-word has a creative life of its own down under).

The obvious and practical answer is yes, I’ll come home. I’m not…

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Late last year I started to map out my best cookbooks of 2025. For several years I wrote an end of year roundup of cookbooks and food related material for the likes of delicious., Guardian Australia, and The Australian. These pieces always served to both assuage my guilt at the pile of books sent by publishers throughout a year and an excuse to buy the ones that hadn’t been sent – on occasion wiping out the commission fee in full. But for the last few years I’ve either not pitched, not been asked, or failed in any desperate attempts to clinch the commission that props up my addiction to beautiful books.

So, I started to pull together a list for this newsletter until I had over twenty contenders, but then I hit upon a truth. It occurred to me that many of the books that I’ve written about in past years now live on my shelf, untouched since I wrote about them, many with post it notes marking recipes that have never been attempted. A course correction then, and rather than a long list of the books that wouldn’t make it out of the year and that were maybe slightly performative in their listing, a shorter one of those that will be carried forward into 2026.

I whittled them down and down before landing on a trio that will live on my desk or in a strategic place within the house, where I’ll glimpse them daily and they’ll speak to me: cook from me you lazy c***. I’m sorry, they’re my anthropomorphic cookbooks and they’re very, very foul mouthed.

As I’ve written in a food wrap of 2025 that will drop shortly (before such things start to look like still hanging Christmas decorations) the last year has been shaped by not being at home, the creep of convenience, a yo-yo in weight and a decline in fitness that I started to tackle late last year, returning to my PT after almost two years (I’d honestly thought it was less than 18 months). It’s been a year where appetite has been lost and then found more than once and where comfort eating has become a cause of discomfort. This all serves as context to my choices.

Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon. You may know Hetty from her previous books like Community, Tenderheart, and To Asia, With Love, a regular at the New York Times, or To Vegetables, With Love here on Substack. If you don’t know her work then lucky you, because you get to discover it for the first time. When it was first released, I said of Linger, that ‘there are salad leaning cookbooks and then there are Hetty written salad leaning cookbooks.’ I asked, do you ever get the feeling that a cookbook could have been written for you, that the author somehow knows what you need in your life? Well, that’s how I felt when I opened this book, and that feeling has only grown stronger over months. I haven’t cooked from it as yet but the travel will slow a little this year and at least for the first months of the year my plan is to hunker down in Margaret River, to write, edit, read, walk, swim, lift the occasional weight, be grateful when my trainer says its inchworms today not burpees, and to cook every day. It’s to push myself beyond the pull of convenience that I’ve fallen into and it’s to make flavour non-negotiable. Linger, will be getting its own weekly workout.

What We Call Masala by Sarina Kamini is billed as ‘a cook’s practical guide to the poetry of Indian spices.’ This wasn’t a book that I came to with no knowledge of the author. As I said in my interview with Sarina, she’s someone that I’ve known for a number of years, she lives just down the road, and I had the good fortune to sit in her kitchen and get an impromptu spice masterclass as we chatted. The book isn’t her first but it with a publisher as influential as Murdoch. There’s a story to the production of the book itself, Sarina gathering recipes and engaging with cooks and chefs across India, and shot on location. It all comes through in its pages. I’ll carry it forward because curry in its broadest sense is something that has been with me since as long as I can remember. I’ve written about growing up in West Yorkshire and East Lancashire and formative restaurant experiences in cities like Bradford with a sizeable Pakistani and Bangladeshi community. I took a battered 1970s edition of a curry cookbook to university and have added many more over 30 years. It is the food that I go to for comfort. But I’ve never really nailed it at home, much to my disappointment. I’m guessing it’s my use of spice, not always using ghee, and a hurried approach in the kitchen to most things. This is the year, and this is the book, that will put that right. I’m starting with butter chicken which only recently has become something I crave.

Abundance by Mark Diacono. I might be a little biased with this one in that my name is printed in the thank you section at the back. Mark started writing the book in weekly installments on his Substack for paid subscribers, of which I am one. I’m assuming there’s more paid subs than there are names on that page, but I made it on. It’s always nice seeing your name in a book whether it’s a thank you section (it’s happened a couple of times) or if your work is quoted (again, on occasion). This physical book and its Substack origins inspired me creatively. The thought of thousands of people reading along, giving Mark the push to write, and also whipping up interest from publishers. I remember (vaguely), Mark referring to what his publisher called ‘your Nigel Slater book’ due to its chronological order and diary-cum-memoir style. I am very much of the camp who likes a story with every recipe. The occasional internet cry of ‘just give us the recipe’ grates me more than I can tell you. I won’t just carry Abundance into this year but well beyond. It will be something I look to for inspiration in writing as well as food. But that’s not to diminish the cooking because there’s a style here that I’ve always loved which is seasonal, rustic, wholesome, a little bit coastal, and British in the best of ways which is to say that it draws from the continent. Meals that you would happily cook for one, two or a whole table; a book that feels like home in so many ways.

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Getting to share a panel with two good friends always makes for a great conversation. Late last month Fleur Bainger and I joined Max Veenhuyzen who curates Yes, Chef! a monthly conversation series at Lawson Flats. a creative leaning private members club in Perth.

On the night our wireless mics failed but having set the iPhone to record I had a rough but actually pretty serviceable recording. There’s a little bit of traffic noise here and there and maybe the glug-glug-glug as water is poured but for those who told me they’d love to come but weren’t in Perth, here you go. Listening back I had to get passed the cringe of listening to my constant fillers - the ums, ahhs, likes, kind ofs, et al - especially next to an ABC trained broadcaster. But the inner voice that spurs me on said, get over yourself.

Max (the other one) is one of Australia’s most well known food journalists, with a reputation and network that is both vast and international in nature. He’s the state editor for Gourmet Traveller, writes a weekly review under the Good Food umbrella, and in recent years co-authored the Burnt Ends book (a weighty tome on the cult Singapore restaurant). He’s a gatherer of people as much as stories, hosting and curating events here and away.

We’re all pretty much the same age but Fleur, I believe, pips us to the post in years on the job. She’s worked for the ABC, our national broadcaster, as well as freelancing for the likes of Australian Geographic and Australian Traveller. While her wheelhouse is very much travel Fleur is noted for her food writing, at one time serving as the restaurant critic for STM (Sunday Times Magazine). In recent years she’s turned her hand to mentoring, helping to develop the next generation of curious writers and journalists. I’ll often get submissions from writers and when I find out that they’ve worked with Fleur the penny often drops as to their quality. Let this serve as a not so subtle ad for anyone who needs a Fleur in their corner.

If you enjoy what you hear please do drop a like or a comment and any ideas of what you’d want to hear more of, as we’ve got another two conversations penciled in for early next year. This is only slightly edited, a Q&A was cut as we hadn’t expressly got permission from the audience members who participated (and absolutely nothing to do with me getting a little more ranty than in the main conversation.)

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I live and write on Wadandi Boodja, home to the Wadandi people, Traditional Owners of this corner of south west Australia. Saltwater people, their connection to land and sea is deep, and continuous. I acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging.

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As the opener to an email “Earth to Max, Earth to Max, come in,” is a novel way of catching my attention. It’s part joke, part frustration, and on that occasion it worked. There’s been a few variations on this theme over the past few months, from work to a few friends and in regard to Between Meals, a couple of loyal readers. An…

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There are many misconceptions about dining out for a living that seem to persist. One is that if you’re still lucky enough to call yourself a critic you’re able to flex the company plastic with impunity. I thought I’d start with that one just to raise a smile from my peers. I’d say most of us these days are freelance. The…

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For the next week, if you sign up for an annual paid subscription to Between Meals, which will be lowered to $40 from $50 (that's about 26US…

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So, where possible I'll add a little context to where we are on any given week but sometimes you may just have to read between the lines. Some of you may seek out the places featured, and I’d love to hear if you do, but really the raison d'être of this column is to excavate those moments of high hospitality that are common to us wherever we are, for me to impart more of a personal note, and also to use words like raison d'être.

Countless critics, myself included, have written about the moment when you’re “made.” It’s something that I used to take very seriously, because it was impressed on me that it’s a very serious business. Let’s be frank. Being made in a restaurant sense isn’t attempting to infiltrate an organised crime gang, having a wire ripped from your chest, and ultimately taking up eternal residence in a shallow grave. Yes, I’ll always work to the commandment of thou shalt book anonymously (though in itself that isn’t foolproof) or better still, take the walk in, but really once you there it doesn’t matter much if you’re seen in the first moment or the last.

Even when I’m not on the clock (albeit I’m kind of always in standby mode) there’s still a weird moment, a frisson even, approaching somewhere new or old. Nowhere illustrates this more for me than Lulu La Delizia (just Lulu if you’re well acquainted). And so, just the other week I found myself on what seemed like a unseasonably fine day, crossing Rokeby Road and entering Forrest Walk. Anticipation was more about a first visit to their new addition Cantina than being made but all the same I was perhaps 15-metres shy of the restaurant when the figure of Joel Valvasori-Pereza greeted me.

He's synonymous with this Subiaco pasta bar that at first mined his Friulian heritage but has since morphed into what I’ve often discussed with him as being an expression of Italo-Australian cooking. He is someone who I’d say I have a good degree of sport with, from a years-old recurring jibe about his crostoli to recently terming him Joelius Caesar (the most creative thing I did that week).

There was a time when I’d walk through the doors of Lulu and there would be a slight nod from him as he dominated the pass, poker face fixed. He’d slide over to the table at some point in the night, drop my dining alias in greeting me, as not quite a fuck you but maybe as a two can play at this game. Like I said, sport.

Now, he roams indoor and out, in the mould of old school restaurateur, the kitchen in the hands of longtime head chef James Higgs, who, having just celebrated 8 years in the kitchen, must hold some kind of record in Perth hospitality. In exchanges with Valvasori-Pereza he’ll often remind me subtly (and not so subtly) that they are a family business, and that it’s his team as a whole who propel this small but mighty eatery.

I’m reminded writing this that there’s a similar fate for head chefs and (often) spousal co-owners when there’s a big personality at play. They’re somewhat written out. So, let’s just take a moment to say that any praise of past and present Lulu can also be apportioned to Ivana Valvasori-Pereza, Higgs, and a full cast of supporting players.

Mid-August and the doors have been open on Cantina for nine weeks. Conversations over the years have gone from an imagined sandwich bar (when we got into a heated conversation for The Guardian about Perth’s famed Conti Roll), to what is now reality. The Valvasori-Pereza’s secured the next-door lease years ago and have played the long game. What has emerged, seems right for the times, with a pared down offering of Lulu’s menu, a tight wine list, and a panini offering that is, well, we’ll get to that.

Valvasori-Pereza repeats to me, “nine weeks here, nine years next door” and with that my mind wanders as he walks away from the table I’ve settled at. I came to Perth in 2012 and for most of the time I’ve known him to some degree. Introduced first by a friend, Katrina Lane, a consummate connector of people from producers to chefs to journalists. She suggested dinner at Lalla Rookh (his re-entry point into Perth hospitality after a notable Melbourne era), where all the talk was of the il capo menu (to my mind the first of the modern feed me menus in Perth, or at least the first that caught the imagination). The prized but not guaranteed dish, bone marrow from "Warren's cows." Warren Pensini, being one of the state’s main proponents of grassfed beef. On the night in question, we got the bone marrow and a visit to the table (a practice that we’ll come back to one day). Over the years there’s been the inevitable work interactions, events, and the time I inadvertently gate-crashed his 40^th birthday meal at Burnt Ends in Singapore (it truly is the Australian Embassy). As I start to slot those moments into place, time is laid out in front of me in the way that it does when you become more aware of its passing, when you’ve got a glass of wine to hand, a menu, and nowhere to be.

I’ve reflected a lot in the past year about what I’ll call big life things: age, mortality, health, where to live life, love, money, existential career fears, and all that. I think about living in the UK again until I remember how fucking expensive it is (and that my tolerance for the cold and whatever Brexiteers have now morphed into is wafer thin). I think about becoming a digital nomad but feel that I’m at least a decade past that and also about moving to the east of Australia. Then, I’m served up these little reminders that home is this vast, underpopulated, often frustrating to the point of screaming, beautiful, remote, diverse and ancient place. Western Australia, the true Wild West in many ways.

I hear a voice - “hey chef” - and see the blur of someone entering my vision from the left. Looking up, I’m greeted by Ben Ing, one time head chef at Noma, maker of excellent congee, and now himself a resident of WA. With him, Will Irving, brewer and co-owner of FOUND. who is another recurring face in my 13 years in WA. Someone I met very early on, when my professional outlook was still very beer focused. I could pin a fair few hangovers on Will, if not just for the fact that he was one of the key players in the rise of Feral’s Hop Hog (IYKYK).

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Interviews for Between Meals are usually over the phone or I have to be presentable from the chest up on a video call. This interview with Sarina Kamini, author of What We Call Masala (published by Murdoch and out in Australia, the UK and US) was in Sarina’s own kitchen. As we chatted and took some detours that aren’t in this edited extract, Sarina was preparing lamb ribs for the local fire brigade in which she’s a volunteer.

We’re both Margaret River locals and it was perhaps 18 months ago that we first discussed her freshly signed deal with Murdoch. As she told me about the concept for the book, I immediately thought this was going to be something of note. I wasn’t wrong, but then over the years I’ve known Sarina I’ve come to the opinion that no one talks and writes about spice in the way she does. It’s practical yet poetic with a good helping of spirituality and grounded in her Kashmiri heritage. She doesn’t claim to know everything there is to know and with that there’s a curiosity and level of respect that’s perhaps one of her superpowers.

As an educator on spice and its use in the kaleidoscope of what we know as “Indian food” Sarina has been putting in the groundwork for over a decade. She’s led classes and dinners, sold her own masala spice mix (at one point my secret weapon), and leaned on around 30 years as a journalist (with the likes of The Age) in Melbourne, Paris, Edinburgh, Barcelona, Southern California and now Margaret River. It’s not her first book but it is her first with a publisher of Murdoch’s size and reach. If this is the first time you are hearing her name, trust me, it will not be the last.

This interview runs to about a 25 minute read so it’s perhaps one to settle in with or come back to a few times. There is so much in this as we talk about what masala means to Sarina, that it’s far more than a term for a spice mix and that it has cultural weight. We get into why she felt drawn to write the book, her early fears about representing something she describes as intimate, and she shares that her vision is of a trilogy. She gives the lowdown on what those further two books could look like. We get to grips with understanding the food of India, its complexities, traditions, techniques, and how in this vast changing nation there’s a hunger to capture this culture. We get into the brass tacks of writing the book and shooting on location in Bangalore with photographer Patricia Niven and stylist Kirsten Jenkins, or as Sarina puts it “the A Team.” And there’s so much more beyond that. I hope you get as much from it as I did.

On Wednesday look out for an extract from the book and a little breakout from this interview when Sarina couldn’t resist an impromptu mini-masterclass on salt. You don’t get that on Zoom.

We’ve talked before about the way that the industry, both journalism and publishing evolves. Have you seen a steady change through the years, or do you think it’s been driven a lot by technology and modern expectations?

When I started decades ago, I got a cadetship with one of the local independent weeklies – when they existed - and then went to the regional daily. We were living down in Torquay (a seaside town just over an hour west of Melbourne). I used to write the local fishing column under a nom de plume and the real estate. Back then you had to be a literary person to get published, an author was an author. Then, when I eventually did get to the point of writing books, it became, we don't want you to be an author, we want you to be a personality.

Was that when you started to go into video content, with the thought of building that profile that’s so desired?

Not really, it's just that masala is really tricky, because it's so complex and the language of it is foreign to the West. As soon as you take masala out of context, which is India, then there needs to be an entire language that's developed around that in order to give it its proper meaning. A lot of that language is visual. So, the way a spice looks, the different textures in foods as you're working with different techniques and even the language. I think the reason I went to video was because it's an oral storytelling tradition and that's what video allows you to do. Writing is different. It's more formal, there's a space between me and the reader and that's the page. Whereas video is a lot more direct.

One of the things I think about as a writer is that it’s increasingly difficult to get people to read and I think the cookbook for a lot of people has changed in the way that they use them. Just my opinion (and I’m sure this has been written about a heap) but, say 30 years ago, I think more people bought cookbooks to use them as an instructional. Now, I think a lot of cookbooks are about inspiration for readers.

Yeah, I mean, I have books that I use for the recipes but I'm not actually a massive cookbook user. I tend to buy them to support people I like rather than to only use them.

Though with yours, I’m not sure how easy it would be to go off book, because the masala element is integral to the book and as a spice novice that’s not something you want to fuck with, to put it bluntly.

Yeah, if you know masala you can, but most people probably don't. So, it's written in a really deliberate, sequential way that if you read it from beginning to end, it's a thought process. And the thought process is intricate, hence the 320 pages. It was twice the size when I submitted it. 140,000 words upon submission and I cut it back to 90,000.

What I'm wanting to give with the book is a method of thinking because when you're dealing with masala it starts with where you want to get to and then you're building your way there. When you're new to it you don't know really what the end destination is, you don't know where the beginning is, and you don't know the journey. So, it's written in a way that you can get to know key spices in a complex context and then the more information you have, the more you can then start to choose your own adventure.

So, what happened to the 40,000 words that you cut? Is that something that you'll use elsewhere?

Nah, I'll just bin them [laughing]. I don't know, I've got so many words. There's a second idea in my mind that there’s a trilogy. So, I love Josh Niland. If I could meet anyone and cook with them, it would be him. He works with seafood in the way I think about masala. It's the same kind of thought process whereby that thing is a sentient body and you're working with it and it's a lovely relationship to have. So, the idea is that this is based on a trilogy and whether or not I get to do that goes to sales and all those sorts of things. But initially I just wrote everything and then you just figure out it can't all be in there, and you've got to give space for the reader.

You’ve been going back and forth to India whether it’s for the book or other projects. Has it re-calibrated the way that you think about food or has it always been the same?

I've learnt heaps. I've always loved food. I've always wanted to tell stories through it. That's what I used to do and that's what I've done for as long as I've had a profession, but I think initially I was curious about it because I was looking for something in me and it was an internal pursuit.

And now I love it because it is so joyous. Like, there is nothing more joy than being in India and having the recognition of working with home cooks, professional chefs, drivers who take you to their house and cook you a meal that’s like the best thing you've ever eaten because there's this beautiful recognition of the specialness of that thing. I

It's also a legacy. So, my parents have both passed away, it’s been a couple of years, and so for me that extra time I spend there now is special. One, I've got great work projects going and different things coming up but it's like I get to be home, it's being with family.

There must be moments daily that remind you of your parents or the past. I mean obviously India's such a sensory place.

Yeah, the food's so good. I mean it's so great to go there and never have to cook and just eat incredible food - breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it's like the book's so wonderful but it's not the end, it's the beginning. I'm filming a series over there at the moment (which I can’t say too much about) and then I'm working with some of the Australian government organisations based out of India for collaboration projects and just working on different things with different people.

So, the book is its own thing but has also opened the door a little wider?

Yeah, because people take you seriously. It takes a long time to convince people that you know what you're talking about. I like it over there because I don't need to, here I really need to, because people don't understand it. Over there people know what I have to share is valuable so it's nice being there for that reason.

I think we're just at a tipping point in terms of general knowledge of the regionality of Indian food and the diaspora is growing here and there's great representation of different parts of what India is. For a long time India was just a behemoth that people saw like it's an exotica, impenetrable, and it's more porous now, the idea of India weighs in for people.

Is that with more people having travelled there, or maybe Indian culture permeating Western culture more?

It's a couple of things. India itself has been permeated a little bit by the West and so the difference between India and the West is less than it was when we were kids, but also as the diaspora grows and you see people like Justin Narayan and Kishwar Chowdhury and so many more. Now on MasterChef there's always an Indian in there because Indians understand how to use taste because our food is so intricate.

I love this statistic that Indian food is the most diverse in terms of gut biome, because in Western cooking you tend to use chemistry that's the same but in Indian cooking it’s all about contrast and cacophony and so to make it beautiful even the most average cook has to have a really good handle on how to use aromatics.

It's funny because when I was a kid what we’d call Indian would actually have been Kashmiri, Bangladeshi and different regions of Pakistan, because where I grew up in West Yorkshire and East Lancashire there was a concentration of those communities from what I suppose was a post-partition migration (I think) and that larger migration due to Empire (or colonialism). I don’t think most people really knew about its breadth and did that thing where we just stick it under one banner. I mean that’s probably still the case.

That's hilarious. Only because not many people get it fully. I mean, the wonderful thing about travelling in India and being in different kitchens, which is essentially what I do now, is how open all of the cooks and the chefs are to not knowing. Because the regional specificity of the food is so intense. Gresham Fernandes, this incredible chef in Mumbai who I'm doing some content on was telling me that in the tribal cooking of the south they use lichen, they use fungi, as a spice. They dry it and they grind it down and then they use it as an aspect of masala. It's an earthy representation of what's done in the north and in Persian Mughlai-influenced cuisine, which is what Kashmiri food is.

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