What five female stars of the food world (including Nigella Lawson) would tell their younger selves
You don't know how far you've come unless you look at where you started. To celebrate International Women's Day, we ask five food world luminaries what they would tell their younger selves.
Nigella Lawson
She's authored a dozen cookbooks since 1998's How To Eat and for just as long Nigella Lawson has guided television audiences in the joys of cooking and the pleasures of eating. Even so, Lawson has no doubt that her 18-year-old self would have been incredulous if she'd been told that a professional life in food awaited. "It would have been the absolute furthest thing from my mind," she says. "It wasn't even something I considered in order to rule it out." Yes, she was passionate about eating spaghetti and clams in Italy and true, she studied languages at university, but combining those interests was not the plan. Nevertheless, the 62-year-old domestic goddess stoically, tentatively weighs in with words of wisdom for her teenage self.
I would say there are many ways of finding your place in this world and how you fit into it, what you can learn from it and how you move through it. It isn't a smooth path. It's an endless bumping against obstacles. It's like that children's book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt. You ask, "Do I climb over that or climb under it?" but actually you have to go through it. I say that a lot. Who we become is such an accretion of all the things we've done wrong as well as right in our life. You really do just have to live through things.
Don't be surprised at where you end up and where life takes you. You need the innocence of not really knowing – of doing a bit of this, a bit of that and then finding out what's right. You cannot prepare people. If I'd known all the bad things that were going to happen in my life, I'd be too daunted. You've just got to weather them and celebrate the good things. It sounds such a cheesy thing to say, but nevertheless it's true.
You really do just have to live through things.Nigella Lawson
The anxiety of youth can drain so much useful energy. It can get so intense worrying about everything. It is a lesson you have to teach yourself daily, whatever age you are, though I think you do worry less as you get older.
I would like to think things have changed a bit for women in the 44 years since I was 18. What's certainly true is that you don't have to apologise for yourself now. It was a bit different then. It wasn't assumed that you would be able to be forceful. You were trained to be a bit apologetic, softly spoken, not causing any trouble. Although I am naturally conflict-averse as a personality, I think I would say, "Stand up for yourself, you don't have to apologise for yourself, you have every right." We were trained to go through life as if we were trying to go to our seat in a theatre, squeezing past people's knees and apologising as we did it. "Excuse me, excuse me." There is still work to do but I love hearing young women now taking it for granted that they will be able to move forward in the world.
Perhaps we no longer have the same sense of not being able to make a mistake because you're a woman. It's really important to push through that. I think now women are ready to help other women. Because things were more precarious then, people had to look after their own place and their own positions and put a lot of energy into just being. Now there is a supportive network – that gives me very profound pleasure.
As told to Dani Valent
Nigella Lawson will visit Australia as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 30th anniversary celebrations, with a sold-out event on March 27.
Bridget Raffal
When Bridget Raffal was at Sydney's Sixpenny, the sommelier achieved gender parity on the wine list (the split was 60:40 female to male winemakers when she left in 2020 to join Where's Nick). She's since co-founded Women and Revolution, an organisation that connects and empowers women from the beverage industry.
There are many things out of your control, especially when you're a woman. Grace Tame refusing to smile recently and male politicians saying how rude she is for that one act – it's easy to feel overwhelmed by that, to see all the forces pressing down and limiting you.
"What do I have power over, what change can I affect that'll give me some sense of control?" is a key thing to ask yourself. I was in charge of the wine program at Sixpenny. That was my space to do it – the area I could carve out some equality.
When I was young in the industry, there were women who'd been in it much longer than me – women that I didn't feel were very encouraging and may have been cold and unfriendly. I remember writing them off as bitches, basically.
Seven years later, some of those women are attending our events and saying, "Thank you so much, I'm sorry if I was a bit awkward during this [past] event, I really struggle, I feel really shy, nervous and awkward". And I think, "Oh God, you weren't a bitch, you were just uncomfortable. You felt the same way as I felt and I wrote you off."
A woman in her 60s reached out, a publican. "I've always felt that no one is interested in what I have to say because I'm a woman," she said. "This is the first sign of change that I've seen, can I be a member?" I thought, of course.
Talk to people, make friends, make the effort. Occupy space in the conversation. There's the classic advice, "fake it until you make it". Fake it until you realise you're not actually faking it. Apply for jobs you think are out of your league, because you're probably pitching yourself at the appropriate level. Take that mentality and apply it to everything. Act like you have the right to be there.
As told to Lee Tran Lam
Arabella Douglas
Arabella Douglas is a Minyungbul woman, lawyer, company director, and business strategist. She is also chief strategist for Currie Country, a First Nations consortium based on her traditional lands of the Tweed Coast offering native foods, First Nations education and experiences. Douglas' traditional name is Gnibi, meaning Black Swan, a name and totem given to her by her family elders reflecting her role and spirit.
My love of food comes from knowing that it unifies and sustains. And the traditional methods of getting food always meant a time of family bonding. Foraging native food is a United Nations and First Nations right. The reason [Currie Country] is in the foraging business and why we got into foraging native foods as a family is not for the cheffing community. It's because it is our right.
If I don't share with my family how to forage and what our food systems are, I risk the government saying we haven't continued those practices.
I consider native food a luxury food. I don't consider it an everyday food and I think you need the chefs interested in exploring that.
I'm not here for a short term. I'm rebuilding a nation of Aboriginal people using all the skills I have as an individual. To do that, I want to lead everyone that's in my community.
I always have a very clear vision of what I want young people to be doing in regards to Aboriginal culture. I don't want empathy. I want them to see the excellence in Aboriginal thinking systems.
If you're prepared to go to India and go on a spiritual journey I recommend you go on a spiritual journey here. And you'll find that you yourself have intimate relationships with the environment. And that's extremely reassuring, particularly when you've got a crazy world at the moment that gives us no vision and gives us fear as a barometer of living.
I've been living by myself since I was 15. My mother left me to follow a relationship. So I found myself in a housing commission property having to go to school and work part-time and I had no parent around me. And that could sound tragic but it's been the greatest gift ever. I have great resilience because of that. I back myself, even through adversity and challenges.
But at the same time, the lesson I would have reminded my younger self is: "You do not need [the person that hurt you] to acknowledge the pain that they have caused you for you to heal." It's beautiful when it happens but it's not necessary. And you define whether you're lovable or not. I would remind that beautiful young 18-year-old girl that you don't need to be externally validated. Your self-love and self-worth is an internal discussion.
I consider the colonial impact of 230-or-so years like a really bad domestic violence relationship. If I was to see Australia only through the trauma it has caused, it would stop me experiencing the value of my culture, seeing a future that's rich. Our culture is alive. I want growth of loyalty to my Minyungbul nation. I can't push the nation forward by myself; we're too small a group. We're open to leading people who live on our land because I am hoping they fall in love with it and want to protect it as much as I do.
It sounds sensible to me and the response from families in the area is really good.There's no profit in it. The profit is I don't have to argue for the continuation of things that are important in this continent.
I am motivated very strongly by the thought that if I'm not doing what I'm doing and thinking what I'm thinking about my own nation, I will have disappointed all of my ancestors' expectations from 1788 forward.
It annoys me when non-Indigenous Australians say, "Oh, I'm fifth-generation, sixth-generation Australian". I'm 3500th-generation Australian.
As told to Myffy Rigby
Join Arabella Douglas and Christine Manfield on an exploration of Asian and Indigenous ingredients and traditions traded along the east coast of Australia long before colonisation. This event is produced with the team at Rockpool Bar & Grill with the participation of Rockpool chefs from the National Indigenous Culinary Institute. Tuesday, March 29, Rockpool Bar and Grill Melbourne, $240 a head, melbournefoodandwine.com.au
Jung Eun Chae
Jung Eun Chae grew up in South Korea and studied industrial design before moving to Australia on a student visa to explore the world of pastry. She worked in fine-dining restaurants including Cutler & Co, then had a change of direction following an ankle injury that made kitchen life impossible. Now 37, Chae's project is home-based dining with a focus on traditional Korean foods, especially ferments. She is currently awaiting planning approval for a six-seat restaurant at her home in Cockatoo.
Wow, being 18 feels so long ago. At that age I was one of 500,000 students madly prepping to get into the desired college. South Korea is known for its fierce competition over admission into top universities and its reputation for a merciless education system is well known globally. I was aiming to go to an art school. I remember I was drawing day and night. I was driven by a single goal, which was admission into a "respectable" college.
I would tell my young self not to be defined by social stereotypes. It's perfectly fine to feel confused and unsure. You don't have to impress anyone. Just follow your heart. Everyone is different, so follow your own dream and path. Have a go at everything you can. Trust that every experience is a learning opportunity, even the bad ones. Your experiences will eventually shape into your path.
I'm now 37 years old. After majoring in industrial design, I realised it wasn't something I wanted to do. I needed a break from years of fierce competition. The journey of moving to Australia and pursuing a career in the food industry has not always been breezy or rosy, but it has taught me so many valuable lessons and shaped me into a stronger individual, able to pursue my dream. Art to food may sound quite random and spontaneous. But I had a gut feeling that I would enjoy the journey and be good at it.
Before you see yourself as a woman chef, think of yourself as a chef. If you don't think or act as if you are equal, no one else in the kitchen will. It's all about efficiently collaborating as a team. There is no need to specify gender before our titles.
As told to Dani Valent
Durkhanai Ayubi
In 1985, war forced Durkhanai Ayubi's family to leave their homeland of Afghanistan. Her book Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen, released in 2020, tells their story. Ayubi is a deep thinker, a gifted storyteller and speaker. When the collapse of order in Afghanistan unfolded in 2021, the Parwana Restaurant family hosted a dinner event that raised more than $180,000 for the people of Afghanistan. In the aftermath, Ayubi's voice is more important than ever.
There's nothing I could tell my teenage self. I would want her to go on the journey she needs to go on, uninterrupted. I think challenges come into focus as and when we are ready to realise and overcome them.
My life has been defined greatly by the feminine – I am one of five girls, and my mother and sisters have always been a great and orienting impact in my life. Reading my grandmother's poetry also greatly impacted my selfhood. She wrote about feminist struggles in Afghanistan in the 1950s. She wrote about the power of knowing that a veil doesn't protect you, but that it was the deeper understanding and ability to shed prejudices that was needed in Afghan society for it to flourish and prosper.
One of the most important things for me is to never feel as though I've arrived – to always be in service of learning, to embrace uncertainty, to know that, by virtue of being human, there are always unknowns to explore and that the frontiers of knowledge are always shifting. I've also come to understand that there is great power in empathy – but not an empathy derived from assuming we could stand in another's shoes, but an empathy derived from knowing we'll never know the true extent of the experience of others and all we can do is dig into our own selves with more depth, understanding that knowing ourselves in this way is what allows us to identify the inseparability between all that exists.
Success for me, it is not about a particular outcome or destination, but about following my own ancient song and heartlines, having the ability to find them by excavating them from deep within, and staying close to them, trusting the symphony they create and the paths they carry me on.
As told to Katie Spain; portrait Emmaline Zanelli