About me
I live in Sydney, Australia I am A BABY BOOMER born in 1950 When I was 23 I went to USA & fell in love with NEW YORK CITY I was living in Syracuse at the time & went down to NYC to fix up my status. Picture this I came in through GRAND CENTRAL STATION when I came up the stairs it was the most beautiful day I went WOW & really felt like yelling HELLO WORLD with upstretched arms. I ended up doing NYC in one day I went to EMPIRE STATE BLD 3 times last being midnite to call home then off to UNITED NATIONS, CENTRAL PARK, BROADWAY, 42nd St, then down to GREENWICH VILLAGE, CHINA TOWN then all the way up to HARLEM Am I HYPER you could say so. I learnt to cook in the US mainly Chinese thru my 2 PEI MEI & CRAIG CLAIBORNE CHINES Cookbooks & I stayed for 7 years. I still remember it like yesterday
Cooking Influences
My FIRST influence would haveto be my Polish/Ukraine mum Who is/was a very good cook & we (my sister, Helena & dad) ate mainly Polish bohemian food, In WW2 Mum was an army chef for the USA & she can pull together a very large meal with no stress, I find it a bit daunting to cook en mass. Anyway because mum was such a wonderful cook, handful of this, pinch of that etc with a great palate (everything she cooks tastes great) before I travelled overseas, the only 3 things I would be able to cook for you would have been 1. Spaghetti Bolanaise, Garlic bread, tossed salad 2. Steak, chips & salad 3. Barbeque Lamb, USA dish where you place sliced onions around a leg of lamb, make a BBQ sauce & bake GREAT taste WhenI went overseas & cooked as a nanny when I was 23/24 is when I really got into cooking I AM LUCKY (that as my BFF said) you can have 3 people cook same dish from a book & get 3 different results & thou I suppose I am bragging mine would taste the best! I only wish I could cook llike mum without a recipe Admittedly every weekend mum & I would be baking Chocolate Eclairs & Victorian Sponge Caked from time I was about 14 At time of writing (SEPT 2009) Mum is very il with Cancer & has ONLY weeks to live so I hope to keep her memory alive with the Polish/Ukraine/Russian food she showed me how to cook
Second influence would have had to be a sociology professor from Rutgers, Cathy G....When her Sth American housekeeper had to go back to Argentina, Cathy whose 2 kids were happy to try everything once, asked if I liked to cook & with help from 3 Chinese cookbooks, 2 X Pei Mei & Craig Glaiborne Cathy helped me to get into Chinese food.
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Australia Chef
November 23, 2009
