Beloved Aussie cook Stephanie Alexander has always been open about her passion for food.
The author and food educator, 78, is an advocate for healthy eating, as well as inspiring and empowering children to make better food choices through her Kitchen Garden Foundation. However, she’s now slammed reality cooking shows for focusing more on drama than the cooking itself.
While cooking shows have grown in popularity, many now feature celebrity chefs, a larger-than-life host and plenty of drama.
Speaking exclusively to Starts at 60 she said: “I’m not interested in [those] programs at all. I say they’re the worst education you could give anyone, child or adult.”
Although the programs are often framed as inspiration for home cooking, Stephanie claimed they actually create unrealistic expectations of what people should be serving families for dinner.
“The idea that cooking has [to] be done under some sort of ridiculous pressure only leads to anxiety,” she said.
She insisted that an aspiring home cook needs encouragement, not confusion, which is why her latest cookbook, The Cook’s Apprentice, encourages all aspiring cooks, no matter their age, to believe “that they can become confident [cooks] and have a great time making lovely fresh food”.
The book is a hands-on guide with tips, techniques – such as poaching chicken or skinning a fillet of fish – and recipes inspired by her popular 1996 cookbook, The Cook’s Companion, which is still used in kitchens around the country today.
However despite her beliefs, Stephanie said “[reality cooking shows] are genuinely very entertaining”.
Her love of cooking and teaching has transcended into all areas of her professional life and since 2004, she has been travelling the country with her Kitchen Garden Foundation helping schools set up gardens in which students grow vegetables they then turn into meals. The initiative has been taken up by more than 1,700 Australian schools.
“I believe that it’s very important for young children to have that sort of food education and for many of them sadly it doesn’t happen at home,” she said.
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While she’s undoubtedly skilled in the kitchen, the Melbourne-based chef didn’t plan on a life behind the chopping board. In fact, Stephanie studied to become a librarian, with no thoughts of working with food professionally.
“My passion for all things to do with food continued throughout my library years,” she said. “I dipped my toes into food service with my first restaurant Jamaica House with my first husband. A very difficult time. It took me a few more years to decide to have another go and this time with the beginning of Stephanie’s Restaurant I was off and running.”
Stephanie’s Restaurant closed in 1997 after years of critical acclaim. It was groundbreaking in the way it used seasonal Australian produce to showcase the flavours of the country and cemented Stephanie’s name as a leader in the nation’s culinary scene.