Stephanie Alexander

Stephanie Alexander, author of probably Australia's most owned book on cooking - The Cook's Companion, has a new memoir out tomorrow. It is titled A Cook's Life.

Here is a link to an extract where she discusses The Cook's Companion which I, and I suspect most Australians, simply call Stephanie.

I bought two of her books last year and that means this is a must read. Her cookbooks are so wonderful. One of mine is a British edition - Kitchen Garden Companion, the other is Australian, so the seasons are a bit mixed up for me, but both of them have such wonderful recipes... I make a variation of her Rhubarb ricotta turnovers as a strudel (I live in Austria, strudel is one of the basic food groups.) that is really wonderful. Her recipes for vegetables are wonderfully varied.

Book Depository does not have access to the book yet - even for preordering, but I did find
ISBN 13: 9781921382789
ISBN 10: 1921382783

Yes, I was quite surprised that I could touchstone it. It has been catalogued already by one private user.

The bookshop did not have it today, but they're getting it in.

I'm looking forward to reading it. We were regulars at Stephanie's for many years and there's a lot I'd like to know about what was going on behind the scenes. No doubt about it, she's a living national treasure.

What, not got copies yet?

It's not quite what I expected. Rather too much information about personal relationships (as in sex life), but skates over the history of her business dealings. Still, very interesting and makes old farts like me reflect on how much things have changed, mostly for the better.