Cooking for Awakino Station

Tell us a bit about yourself. I have always been immersed in rural life, having grown up on a small farm, studying agriculture after high school and then working on several farms. I have always felt connected and at peace when on farm. A day in town and I cannot wait to get home to the wide spaces, to get my hands dirty in the garden and to cook a hearty and wholesome meal.

I started out as a shepherd and moved on to work as a stud manager on a fine wool sheep and Angus stud. After moving to Awakino Station with my partner, Dan, and welcoming our first daughter, Ava, I took a step back from the more physical side of farming and took on the role of station cook. Six years and three girls (Ada, 6; Ida, 2; Betsy, 9 months) later, I am still cooking daily for our shepherds. With raising our daughters (and any orphan animals we get), cooking smokos and lunches, creating new recipes, sharing our life on my Instagram, tending to the homestead garden and growing fruit and vegetables, I have a wonderful, action-packed full-time job that offers diversity and enjoyment.

What is life like on Awakino Station? We couldn’t ask for a better environment than Awakino Station to raise our kids. There is so much space to explore and to allow them to just be children. And I am grateful every day that I can be at home with my girls as they grow. Some people think station life must be lonely, and I suppose if you are used to the hustle and bustle of city life that may be true. But for me it’s about celebrating the peace – the sound of the birds’ morning chorus, long days outside with early starts and early bedtimes.

Do you have special memories from childhood around growing and cooking; an emotional connection that you’ve carried through to adulthood that influences the way you live now? I always used to be an animal lady but after having children I really discovered my love for growing vegetables as well. Being able to wander out to the garden and pick fresh peas for the kids to scoff back. It also made sense with cooking for several shepherds daily; during the busy months it’s hard to get away to town to buy fresh produce, so to have a garden full of staple ingredients is a godsend. Growing up, my mother had an impressive vegetable garden, as did my granny, and we ate very seasonally. So the idea of living seasonally and from the land was engrained in my childhood. As the years have gone by, I now see how clever my mum was – with her garden, milking a goat, homemade cheese and bread. Things I took for granted as a child and presumed were the norm. I want to create that same childhood for my kids – sitting down at the table as a family and eating good, wholesome food, creating memories and also positive experiences with and around food.

Biggest learning curve? The biggest learning curve I’ve had to face is time management. Regardless of what I have written on the calendar, I need to have a lunch prepared daily for the staff. With Ava at school now, the calendar seems to fill up quickly so I need to be prepared in the mornings. I rely heavily on the crockpot or Dutch oven, so things can just bubble away happily and be ready to dish up when the shepherds come in. I also tend to double-batch recipes; that way I can freeze some for another day. I always tell myself that first and foremost I am a mother; second I am a station cook (so on the good days that’s when I test out new recipes or make more complex meals); and finally, if I have the time, I share snippets of our life on social media. Most days I can do all three successfully and with ease but there are days of course where I am absent from Instagram. Sharing my life on social media has made me feel proud of our lifestyle and the way we are raising our children – I receive so many lovely messages daily thanking me for what I share and applauding our children’s wholesome upbringing – but knowing when to have those days off to recharge is important.

Has anything particularly heartwarming happened recently? Recently, the girls collected walnuts from the two trees in the homestead garden and sold them for pocket money to buy a wooden doll’s house. I was so overwhelmed by the generosity of the ladies on social media who bought bags of them, and those who kindly donated money towards the girls and told them they were doing a terrific job. One lady, Tania, whose walnut tree was destroyed by Cyclone Gabrielle, has requested walnuts yearly, and also posted the girls a book – Pearl in a Whirl – so the girls could read about Pearl the pet cat whose home was ravaged by the cyclone. It was a lovely way to be able to talk about the cyclone and for the girls to understand the destruction caused.

Can you share some advice for busy folk who still want to try their hand at living off the land and eating seasonally? I think the main thing is to look at what you are currently eating and see what vegetables you can grow yourself, because at the end of the day there is no point in growing food that you don’t eat. Every year I select one crop to really focus on. Two years ago it was pumpkins and I harvested over 20 to store in the garage for over winter. Last year was potatoes. I did succession planting and it was the first year we haven’t had to buy any potatoes. This year I am trying to grow a bumper garlic crop that I can chop and freeze to reduce the need to buy crushed garlic. A great place to start out is to have a lettuce trough on the front porch so you have an ample supply of fresh greens coming into summer. Or over winter have microgreens growing on the kitchen windowsill; they are a welcome addition to add a little bit of freshness and colour to meals. As well as being good for you, growing your own cuts down your overall food bill.

Plans for the future? I am currently proofreading my first recipe collection, which celebrates cooking with lamb and utilising the whole carcass with various recipes for the different cuts of meat. So I am anticipating the completion and release of that. It has been such a fun process and so I hope to add to the collection over the coming years. I want to plant more fruit trees here on Awakino so we can have more variety with eating fresh, and for my preserving. I have a glasshouse waiting to be erected and a vegetable garden layout to be decided on, and then I want to master growing cucumbers and tomatoes – we go through a lot of tomato relish in this household. There are always plans and ideas brewing in my head. It is just finding the time to do them alongside running a farming business and a family.