Fiona’s Kitchen 

I learned to cook at home on the farm. 

My Mum and Dad had a 600-acre beef and sheep farm in Central Southland and another 400 acres on Stewart Island, and there were always lots of mouths to feed.

I could quite capably run the farm kitchen from a young age.

My Dad milked a House cow and delivered a huge bucket of milk to the kitchen every morning.  A lot of the milk was used to fatten pigs.  We always had two ‘on the go’ and they would end up in our freezer.

There are a lot of hunters/gatherers in our family, and we were very fortunate to always have plenty of blue cod, crayfish (lobster), whitebait, venison and paua (abalone) in our freezer, so I’m quite adept at cooking all of these too. 

British Cuisine is my favourite.

It intrigues me how women during the Depression years managed to put food on the table and could make a meal out of very little.

My cooking skills are self-taught.

I’m not a ‘fancy’ cook.  I like making wholesome, farm-style meals which include soups, bread, casseroles, roasts,  baking, lots of vegetables and salad.  

I was a Vegan for 5 years, and a Vegetarian for another 3years in my 20’s, so I have quite a good repertoire of meals in this field as well.

Making bread is therapeutic…..I love kneading.

Nothing brings me more joy than serving a meal that has been created from the food we have grown ourselves.