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Stephanie Alexander has been in many of our homes over the years. Her kitchen bible, the Cook’s Companion, has sold more than 500,000 copies since it was first published in 1996, placing it next to the Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book as one of the most recognisable cookbooks in Australia.
But that bestselling rainbow tome isn’t Alexander’s only career achievement. As well as her writing, the 82-year-old chef and author has operated two restaurants, and established a not-for-profit organisation that educates children about growing, preparing and cooking food. Later this month she’ll join fellow culinary luminary Maggie Beer at the Sydney writers’ festival to talk food and friendship.
Alexander has published 18 books in her 50-year career, but the Cook’s Companion is the one she keeps coming back to. Here she tells us she still cracks it open every day, and shares the stories of other personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
About 10 years ago, maybe more, I visited China with a small group led by my friend and colleague Tony Tan. We travelled by bus between towns and dining destinations. The bus was programmed to stop now and then, to hopefully persuade us to buy something or other. I think it was near Shanghai that we visited a silk factory. I was fascinated watching the silkworms spin their silk.
The products for sale here were silk bed quilts – the filling was silk fibre, not down or feathers, and the outer cover was the most fabulous satin in a wide range of delicate patterns. I bought one, and this amazing quilt has become an essential part of my good night’s sleep. The texture of the silk, its slipperiness and its lack of bulk is without equal. It is warm without weight: I feel as if I am sleeping under a silken cloud.
I take it with me to any holiday destination. I cannot find anything like it locally, which is tragic as it’s beginning to tear. If my house caught fire, I would wrap myself in my quilt and get out fast.
My most useful object
My adult life has been spent choosing lovely food, cooking lovely food and sharing it with family and friends. I guess a kitchen object might be considered my most useful. But I can cope with a knife other than my favourite one. I can make do with a lidded sauté pan that is not quite as good as can be. I do like a good set of scales, but I have also used very flimsy ones in many of the kitchen garden schools I visit.
So I have to say, without false modesty, that my most useful object is the Cook’s Companion. I use it every day.
The item I most regret losing
I lost several pieces of my mother’s jewellery due to a foolish decision to take them with me on a European holiday.
My husband and I were in a post office in Vallauris, a town in the south of France, having a very lengthy session packing and posting home a set of hand-painted plates. When we finally had the parcel labelled and the customs forms filled out, and had both lost our tempers, we returned to our hire car to find that the boot had been sprung. A camera and my jewellery were missing.
The piece I remember most fondly, and miss the most, was a heavy silver locket with a plaited chain and a medallion containing photos of my mother and of me as a very young child.
The lesson was never travel with valuable jewellery. And maybe think very carefully before heading to a French post office.
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