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Writing Courses
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Our Speakers
“I liked the variety of speakers and topics – and the little surprises. It was a feast of shared knowledge.” — Guest, Food & Words 2013
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Food & Words 2021
Chef and restaurateur Neil Perry’s impact on Australian dining both in the restaurant and at home has been indelible. He created dining venues such as Rockpool, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Spice Temple, Rosetta and Jade Temple, has written ten cookbooks and had a long-running recipe column in The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekly supplement Good Weekend. His role as consultant to Qantas, creating their on-board menus since 1997, Neil uses this platform to showcase Australian food. With the advent of the pandemic in March 2020, like many others in the hard-hir hospitality sector, Neil’s Rockpool Foundation swung into action with Hope Delivery, a community meal program in Sydney and Melbourne that provided meals to many international hospitality workers who, without work, were in a precarious situation, without a financial safety net, family or Government support. Neil’s latest project is Margaret, named after his mother, his restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay. On the menu, you’ll find many of the dishes included in his tenth book Everything I Love to Cook.
Neil Perry
Chef, restaurateur, charity ambassador
Leading Australian chef and restaurateur. Known for venues including Rockpool, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Spice Temple, Rosetta and Jade Temple. Has written 10 cookbooks – the latest is Everything I Love to Cook (Murdoch Books). Columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend. Consultant to Qantas. Rockpool Foundation charity. Latest project is Margaret Double Bay
Neil Perry
Chef, restaurateur, charity ambassador
Belinda lives, cooks, and teaches in the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland - a region known for its wonderful farmers’ markets. It’s these markets and the produce in them which informs and inspires the dishes she cooks. She has a wonderful knack of creating recipes for food that you genuinely want to eat and a warm, distinctive writing style that makes you feel as though she’s standing beside you in the kitchen as you cook (one of the most oft heard comments about her books). This award-winning author has worked as a chef, TV food presenter, freelance writer, restaurant reviewer and cooking teacher. Belinda’s books include Belinda Jeffery’s Collected Recipes; the immensely popular Mix & Bake; The Country Cook Book; Desserts; Utterly Delicious Simple Food; The Salad Book, and the newest addition to her book list, A Year of Sundays (Simon & Schuster).
Belinda Jeffery
Cookbook author
Belinda lives, cooks, and teaches in the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland. Her cooking is informed by the seasons and what she buys at her weekly farmers'market. Belinda has worked as a chef, TV food presenter, freelance writer, restaurant reviewer and cooking teacher. Her books include Belinda Jeffery’s Collected Recipes; Mix & Bake; The Country Cook Book; Desserts; Utterly Delicious Simple Food; The Salad Book. The latest is the just-released (November 2021) A Year of Sundays (Simon & Schuster). belindajeffery.com.au
Belinda Jeffery
Cookbook author & teacher
Emiko Davies is an award-winning Australian-Japanese food writer, photographer and cookbook author based in Italy. She has a formidable reputation as a writer on all aspects of Tuscan and Italian food, and her work can be found in many leading digital and print publications. Growing up in a diplomatic family, Emiko spent most of her life living in countries other than her own, from China to the USA. In 2005, on graduation from art school, she arrived in Florence to study art restoration and fell in love with a Tuscan sommelier. Along with their two children, the couple lives in a charming hilltop village between Florence and Pisa. Using historical Italian cookery writers and the country as her inspiration, Emiko has written four cookbooks: Florentine (2016 and 2020), Acquacotta (2017), Tortellini at Midnight (2019) and Torta della Nonna (2021), all with Hardie Grant. Her next book, Cinnamon & Salt, a history of Venetian food with recipes, is due for release in 2022.
Emiko Davies
Food writer
Emiko Davies is an Australian-Japanese food writer, photographer and cookbook author based in Italy. Using historical Italian cookery writers and the country as her inspiration, Emiko has written four cookbooks: Florentine (2016 and 2020), Acquacotta (2017), Tortellini at Midnight (2019) and Torta della Nonna (2021), all with Hardie Grant. Her next book, Cinnamon & Salt, a history of Venetian food with recipes, is due for release in 2022. emikodavies.com
Emiko Davies
Food writer
Ross Dobson grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. His neighbours were mostly immigrants from around the globe who shared their recipes and introduced him to a world of flavours. At 14 he enrolled in a Chinese cooking course at his local college which ignited a life-time passion for cooking. He later went on to establish a number of acclaimed cafés and restaurants in the western suburbs of Sydney, including one in the heritage gardens of an art gallery and a tapas restaurant in an old Victorian terrace house, which also operated as a pop-up yum cha restaurant every Sunday. For his latest book Australia, The Cookbook (Phaidon), he has written more than a dozen, Ross had the enviable task of researching and writing about our national cuisine for an international readership.
Ross Dobson
Chef, cookbook author
Ross Dobson is a chef who has a string of acclaimed cafés and restaurants in the western suburbs of Sydney to his name as well as more than a dozen books. For his latest book Australia, The Cookbook (Phaidon), Ross had the enviable task of researching and writing about our national cuisine for an international readership.
Ross Dobson
Chef, cookbook author
Lucy Tweed is the creator of Every Night of the Week, an Instagram account of recipes for people who don't like recipes. She began her career as a food developer and stylist working for nine years at Donna Hay magazine, learning all about the beauty of simple, fresh food. Clean and strict in style, it was akin to being taught to pencil-draw the perfect circle in art class – necessary skills that she would then adapt as she developed her own style. Lucy has worked in food styling, menu creation, travel writing and art direction. Her first book, Every Night of the Week (Murdoch Books) provides sanity solutions for the daily dinner grind. It’s an entertaining and practical cookbook filled with shortcuts that grant home cooks permission to go their own way.
Lucy Tweed
Food stylist, writer, photographer
Lucy Tweed is the creator of Every Night of the Week, an Instagram account of recipes for people who don't like recipes. She's worked at Donna Hay magazine and in food styling, menu creation, travel writing and art direction. Her first book, Every Night of the Week (Murdoch Books) provides sanity solutions for the daily dinner grind. lucytweed.com
Lucy Tweed
Food stylist, writer, photographer
Sydney food writer Lee Tran Lam is the editor of New Voices On Food, a Diversity In Food Media anthology that Concrete Playground called one of the best books of 2020. The book is a Diversity In Food Media project that celebrates the work of emerging talent from under-represented backgrounds on the topic of food. So whether you’re experiencing the picadas of Chile, chasing a mother's masala tea, getting over beige salad sandwiches, learning about the flavours of Mesopotamia from a refugee advocate or seeing how Indigenous communities share a history with Chinese-Australian immigrants, hopefully this book will open up your world. Lee Tran’s own work appears regularly in Good Food, Gourmet Traveller and SBS Food. She also hosts The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry and Crunch Time podcasts, presents Local Fidelity on FBi radio and has a sandwich named after her which Time Out once called one of Sydney's best toasties.
Lee Tran Lam
Food writer
Food writer Lee Tran Lam is the editor of New Voices On Food, a Diversity In Food Media project that Concrete Playground called one of the best books of 2020. Lee Tran’s own writing appears in Good Food, Gourmet Traveller and SBS Food. She hosts The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry and Crunch Time podcasts, presents Local Fidelity on FBi radio and has a sandwich named after her.
Lee Tran Lam
Food writer
Spanning 65,000 years, Paul Van Reyk’s first book provides a history of food in Australia from its beginnings, with the arrival of the first peoples and their stewardship of the land, to a present where the production and consumption of food is fraught with anxieties and competing priorities. It describes how food production in Australia is subject to the constraints of climate, water and soil, leading to centuries of unsustainable agricultural practices post-colonisation. Australian food history is also the story of its xenophobia and the immigration policies pursued which continue to question the image of Australia as a model multicultural society though the history ends on a positive note as Indigenous peoples take increasing control of how their food is interpreted and marketed. Paul van Reyk is a food writer living in Sydney, Australia. He is a regular presenter at the Symposium of Australian Gastronomy. For a small taste of the book, read Cecilia Leong-Salobir’s review of it in The Conversation.
Paul Van Reyk
Food writer
Paul Van Reyk’s first book provides a history of food in Australia from its beginnings, with the arrival of the first peoples and their stewardship of the land, to a present where the production and consumption of food is fraught with anxieties and competing priorities. Paul, a Sydney food writer, is a regular presenter at the Symposium of Australian Gastronomy. For a small taste of the book, read Cecilia Leong-Salobir’s review of it in The Conversation.
Paul Van Reyk
Food writer
Stephen Simpson is the inaugural Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre and Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. He co-authored Eat Like the Animals: What nature teaches us about the science of healthy eating (HarperCollins) with his long-time research colleague, David Raubenheimer (Leonard P. Ullmann Professor of Nutritional Ecology and Nutrition Theme leader at the Charles Perkins Centre). The pair has worked together for 34 years, at Oxford University and currently at the Charles Perkins Centre. Together they have developed an integrative framework for the science of nutrition, which was devised and tested using insects. The framework has been applied to a wide range of organisms, from slime moulds to humans, and problems, from aquaculture and conservation biology to the dietary causes of human obesity and ageing. In their book, Eat Like the Animals, Stephen and David take us on a journey from jungle to laboratory and back to our own kitchens to understand how and why we eat, how appetites are fed and regulated, and how, in the end, it all comes back to protein.
Stephen Simpson
Academic, researcher and author
Stephen Simpson is the inaugural Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre and Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. He co-authored Eat Like the Animals: What nature teaches us about the science of healthy eating (HarperCollins) with his long-time research colleague, David Raubenheimer (Leonard P. Ullmann Professor of Nutritional Ecology and Nutrition Theme leader at the Charles Perkins Centre). In their book, Stephen and David take us on a journey from jungle to laboratory and back to our own kitchens to understand how and why we eat, how appetites are fed and regulated, and how, in the end, it all comes back to protein.
Stephen Simpson
Academic, researcher and author
Laura Dalrymple is co-owner, with Grant Hilliard, of Feather and Bone, a whole animal butchery established in 2006 to source ethically-raised, biodiverse produce directly from local farms. After 20 years working in graphic design and brand communications, Laura joined Grant at Feather and Bone to help build a business designed to support regenerative farmers, emphasise the importance of transparency in the whole cycle of meat production and consumption and encourage consumers to become change agents for a more sustainable, compassionate food future. Every week or fortnight for the last 10 years, Laura has written a newsletter promoting the virtues of sustainable agriculture, Feather and Bone farmers and their glorious produce and railing against the failings of the conventional food system. In August 2020, six months into the pandemic, her first book, co-written with Grant, was published: The Ethical Omnivore (Murdoch Books).
Laura Dalrymple
Co-owner Feather & Bone, author
Laura Dalrymple is co-owner, with Grant Hilliard, of Feather and Bone, a whole animal butchery established in 2006 to source ethically-raised, biodiverse produce directly from local farms. Every week or fortnight for the last 10 years, Laura has written a newsletter promoting the virtues of sustainable agriculture, Feather and Bone farmers and their glorious produce and railing against the failings of the conventional food system. In August 2020, six months into the pandemic, her first book, co-written with Grant, was published: The Ethical Omnivore (Murdoch Books). featherandbone.com.au
Laura Dalrymple
Co-owner Feather & Bone, author
Who grows our food, how, and for whose benefit? This question has led Alana Mann around the world in her research into food sovereignty and the world's largest social movement, La Vía Campesina (the peasant way). Vital to the aims of democratising our food systems is bridging the distance between eaters and growers, and tackling inequities along the entire food value chain. Over the past three years, she and a growing team of like-minds have built FoodLab Sydney, an early start food business incubator designed to help local home-cooks and fledgling entrepreneurs turn their ideas into 'good food enterprises' that support everyone's economic participation and well-being. She is Associate Professor and Lead Researcher, Food Systems, in the Sydney Environment at the University of Sydney and the author of Food in a Changing Climate. foodlabsydney.com
Alana Mann
Academic, researcher and author
The question of who grows our food, how, and for whose benefit has led Alana Mann around the world in her research into food sovereignty and the world's largest social movement, La Vía Campesina (The Peasant Way). Over the past three years, she and a growing team of like-minds, have built FoodLab Sydney, an early start food business incubator. She is Associate Professor and Lead Researcher, Food Systems, in the Sydney Environment at the University of Sydney and the author of Food in a Changing Climate. foodlabsydney.com
Alana Mann
Academic, researcher and author
Sarah takes a magnifying glass to women authors of some early classics of English cookery.
Using the experience of women such as Elizabeth Raffald, the first domestic goddess Maria Rundell and her successor, Eliza Acton, Sarah unravels the nexus between the writerly aspirations of popular cookery book authors and the fast changing world of their devoted readers. Sarah uses cookery books as the foundation for extensive archival research, a stepping stone to understanding the world at a certain time and place. 'Some historians start with and event or a theme, I choose to start with a cookery book and see where it leads me.' Sarah Benjamin’s first book was, A Castle in Tuscany, The remarkable life of Janet Ross, a biography of the woman who wrote the classic cookbook, Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen.
Sarah Benjamin
Food writer
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Where we connect over the pleasures of the table and enjoy good food and stimulating conversation (about food!). Where we support and enjoy the hospitality offered by creative cooks and chefs. Where we flex our conversational and listening skills and remember our table manners. Everyone's invited. Tables are kept small, so that everyone is an active pacticipant. Outings monthly.
Supper Club
$180
6.30pm
Four-course set menu and interesting wines to complement.
Upstairs, 133a Redfern Street, Redfern
June 20
King Clarence, City
May 9
Club Fontana, Redfern
$65
Sunday lunch, noon
Two generous courses. Drinks at Club prices from the bar.
Rowie's By The Sea
Newport Surf Life Saving Club, 394 Barrenjoey Road, Newport
April 21
Rowie's by the Sea,
Newport
$190
7.30pm
Banquet menu and interesting wines with the meal.
King Clarence
171 Clarence Street, Sydney
Coming up
Our first residential food memoir writing workshop is being held at the home of Jillie Arnott at Coolah Creek in central west NSW in late autumn, in May, 2024.
Jillie, an amazing country cook, and her husband Will are our hosts. Guests/students are invited to stay at the homestead for one, two or three nights. Or, you can travel in daily for the workshop, which runs from 10am–4pm on May 4–5.
Here's your chance to tackle that long-held dream to write your family food stories and recipes down for future generations to enjoy.
We're bound to spend as much time in the kitchen and around the dining table as we do writing – although you don't have to, there is a veranda chair with your name on it.
May 4–5
Food memoir writing
FOOD WRITING // RESIDENTIAL WORKSHOP