{"id":556544,"date":"2026-03-22T07:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556544\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T07:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:27:10","slug":"i-lost-my-love-of-cooking-after-12-years-as-a-chef-moving-to-a-pig-farm-restored-it-australian-food-and-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556544\/","title":{"rendered":"I lost my love of cooking after 12 years as a chef. Moving to a pig farm restored it | Australian food and drink"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was a keen-bean 15-year-old when I got my first job in a commercial kitchen in Canberra, raised on a diet of Jamie<\/a> and Nigella<\/a> and bursting with a passion for food. I dived headfirst into an apprenticeship and eagerly put my training into practice on my days off, cooking elaborate meals for friends and creating plenty of dirty dishes.<\/p>\n

But as the years went on, my love for the kitchen was dulled by a series of toxic workplaces, bullying bosses and long hours. Eventually, cooking for myself became a chore. I was more likely to eat cereal on my kitchen floor than do anything creative that would result in dirty dishes.<\/p>\n

\u2018One kernel of truth shone through: I still loved food\u2019: Lucy Ridge in the kitchen. Photograph: Lucy Ridge<\/p>\n

Despite its name, hospitality can be anything but hospitable to the people working in it. It is an industry that takes more than it gives: your time, your energy, your passion.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a single moment that drove me out of the kitchen. It was more a case of death by a thousand cuts over a 12-year career. In the end, it was the pandemic that caused a hard reset: forced to stop working, I could take a step back and gain some perspective.<\/p>\n

I realised I was deeply unhappy with the way I was living my life, but one kernel of truth shone through: I still loved food, and I was pretty sure the path to happiness would run though my stomach.<\/p>\n

How could I find a way back to the passion that had once sustained me? I wanted to get a sense of how the food world operated outside the kitchen, and with the land and produce, by working directly with farmers, cheese makers, market gardeners, bush foods experts and winemakers.<\/p>\n

Tired of working in a male-dominated environment, I cast a wide net to find women who could teach me more about food. Slowly, I began to build a list of internships, beginning with an artisan cheese maker in New South Wales. It was exciting to learn a new skill, but I was hungry for more.<\/p>\n

\u2018Despite being a pig farm, meals were often vegetable-based\u2019: Lucy Ridge at Jonai farm in 2021. Photograph: Lucy Ridge<\/p>\n

My second internship in 2021 was on a pastured pig farm in regional Victoria: Jonai Farms and Meatsmiths. Pigs here were raised outside in paddocks, free to express their natural piggy instincts. Butchery was also done on site, so I would learn how to raise pigs and prepare carcasses into cuts for sale.<\/p>\n

On arrival at the farm, I was shown where I\u2019d be sleeping for the next two months: a converted shipping container furnished simply with a bed, dresser, slow combustion stove, sink and composting toilet. For showers and meals, I would walk a few metres to the main house, which had a generous kitchen with a large stove, butcher\u2019s block island and cast iron pans hanging from hooks. I couldn\u2019t help but compare it with the last kitchen I\u2019d worked in: all stainless steel and hard edges, with a too-small cool room, far removed from customers. This farmhouse kitchen felt warm and expansive, with a long communal table.<\/p>\n

Meals were organised by rota among the farm\u2019s occupants: owners Tammi and Stuart and their teenager, fellow intern Mads, and two farm hands.<\/p>\n

\u2018It felt like having a dinner party with friends every night\u2019: lasagne and a tomato salad at Jonai farm. Photograph: Lucy Ridge<\/p>\n

Despite being a pig farm, meals were often vegetable-based, with the philosophy of eating better meat less often.<\/p>\n

We cooked local pine mushrooms in plenty of butter and tossed them through pasta; lentil and vegetable soups warmed our bellies on the coldest days. We ate family-style, passing around platters of glistening roast potatoes cooked in pork fat, and homegrown bitter greens and herbs. The sheer range of homemade condiments was a fermenter\u2019s dream: kimchi, giardiniera, fermented garlic and chilli made from the yearly harvest.<\/p>\n

On desserts, we dolloped fresh cream provided by the resident dairy cow; we poured local wines and home-brewed beers liberally, generously.<\/p>\n

\u2018I felt connected and nourished\u2019: beef wellington on the table at Jonai farm. Photograph: Lucy Ridge<\/p>\n

At restaurant kitchens, I was lucky to snatch a few bites of something while perched on a milk crate behind the back door. Staff meals were hurried and treated as an inconvenience. On the farm, eating together was a chance to connect. Here, it felt like having a dinner party with friends every night, sharing nourishing food from a ramshackle assortment of vintage plates.<\/p>\n

I realised that part of the reason I\u2019d fallen out of love with cooking was a lack of community. Several bosses over the years had referred to employees as \u201ca family\u201d but it had never felt that way. We were too busy, too stressed and too overworked.<\/p>\n

At Jonai I was excited about the produce too: tracing the pork from paddock to plate, and picking fresh vegetables from the garden. I felt connected and nourished. When it was my turn on the rota, I was once again eager to get into the kitchen.<\/p>\n

I made fresh pasta, folded dumplings, dressed salads and made puff pastry from scratch \u2013 a skill I\u2019d learned in kitchens, but had never bothered to do at home before. It was almost meditative: fold, roll, chill, fold, roll, chill. I slowly caramelised onions until they were dark and silky, and heated a pot of milk, fresh from the house-cow, to make ricotta. Offcuts of the farm\u2019s smoked bacon were sliced into lardons, and pan fried with brussels sprouts. I assembled a tart with care and baked it for dinner.<\/p>\n

Fed Up by Lucy Ridge. Photograph: Lucy Ridge<\/p>\n

I remember the first time I ever served a customer something I had made from scratch: it was a muffin but I still recall the electricity in my belly as I placed it on the table. Placing the onion tart on the table at the pig farm, I felt the same joy as that 15-year-old apprentice: proudly serving a dish to friends. It felt like a homecoming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was a keen-bean 15-year-old when I got my first job in a commercial kitchen in Canberra, raised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-556544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}