My food evolved out of necessity, the need to modify recipes, design and prepare dishes that would work consistently in the outdoors, from a four wheel drive trailer modified into an Outback kitchen, to a backpack on the summit of a mountain peak. The recipes in my book OUTBACK - recipes and stories from the campfire are those that I have prepared time and time again in the wilderness. They simply work. In today’s busy world, many people don’t have the time to go to great lengths preparing complex dishes. They need something that comes together quickly, is nutritious, has plenty of flavour, and doesn’t require the skills of a three star chef to succeed, so these recipes work in the home kitchen as well. In order to appreciate this, I need to explain my background and how that influenced the evolution of my food. 

I grew up in Melbourne in the sixties – all patriotism aside, a culinary wilderness. When Ave Gardner came to film ‘On the Beach’, she dryly referred to 1959 Melbourne as ‘the ideal place to film the end of the world’. Dinner parties were popular because there were so few restaurants. They generally involved plenty of liquor but not much wine. Everyone smoked lots of cigarettes. The hors d’oeuvres were invariably ‘devils on horseback’ – bacon wrapped prunes, or brightly colored cocktail onions and cubes of tasteless cheddar on toothpicks. The favored entrée was seafood cocktail – bite size pieces of fish plus one prawn served in a cocktail glass on a piece of iceberg lettuce with a dollop of Thousand Island dressing. Dessert was usually chocolate mousse.