From Sorting Books To Writing Them: Cookbook Legend Stephanie Alexander On Her First Real Job

Together with UTS:INSEARCH – a service that helps you find another way into UTS – we’re asking some successful young Australians to tell us about their first job, and how different it is from what they’ve wound up doing today.

–

I am going to write about my first year as a trainee librarian, but in fact it was not my first job. My very first attempt to earn money in return for work done was attempting to grow lettuces to sell to the patrons of my father’s caravan park in Rosebud West, when I was about eleven years old. My grandfather was an experienced gardener and he encouraged me. I would love to be able to say that my garden flourished, given my well-known interest in growing food nowadays, but it did not. I suspect I did not put in enough effort and certainly my poor lettuces struggled for water. The market garden attempt was quietly abandoned.

I had more success with books. I had assisted my Dad in the local public library at Rosebud when the newly-established rate-funded library did not have enough money to pay staff to keep it open on a Sunday. Dad volunteered and I went too. I loved the shiny books, I enjoyed sorting the returned volumes on the trolley and slotting them back in their correct spots on the shelves, and I really loved stamping and filing the borrowers’ slips. I think I was about thirteen when I was thus occupied. Somehow the order and logic of it all was very appealing. And I loved having access to so many new titles.

When the career person came to my school around that same year to ask what the students wanted to do in the future, I was very clear that I did not want to be a classroom teacher. “I’ll be a librarian,” I stated. And so it happened, several years later. I qualified eventually (in those days, one studied librarianship part-time while working in a library), and my first real job was as an assistant at the Children’s Section of the Coburg Public Library, a northern suburb of Melbourne. Once again I loved all aspects of this job; the routine of preparing books for the shelves, and supervising the borrowing and returns. I discovered the pleasure of reading stories to the children, and becoming enchanted by the world of picture storybooks.

Later I travelled to London and found work in the reference library of the BBC, first at Broadcasting House, and then later at BBC-TV at Shepherd’s Bush. This was exciting work. The library was an essential resource for the designers and producers of the splendid programs being made by the BBC, and although I never became one of the senior research librarians I was fascinated by everything I saw and heard.

Soon after I started work at the BBC I met my first husband, a West Indian from Jamaica. We planned to return to Australia in a year’s time and Monty planned to start an importing business in Melbourne. He wanted to import West Indian canned foods and I persuaded him that no-one would buy tamarind juice or ackees if they had not tasted them, so why not open a simple coffee lounge, which I would run whilst he did the importing?

It didn’t work out the way we planned. Firstly, I became pregnant with our daughter. Secondly, the importing business took a while to start up, and in the meantime, the combination of Monty’s charm and my clever snack menu meant that Jamaica House was a huge success, and the pressure was on to become bigger and offer more. So I guess that was the defining moment, brought on by a particular set of circumstances. The pressures were such that the marriage and my involvement in Jamaica House both ended after a couple of years.

I then settled into several years of school librarianship at a local high school. Once again the library played a central support role for the young and enthusiastic teaching staff, as well as serving the needs of all the students.

I have never regretted for one minute the skills I learnt and the time I spent with books and catalogues and reference tools. There is no question that my interest in organising information and presenting it clearly helped me in my massive task of writing the Cook’s Companion, and other books of mine.

The restaurant bug was ignited again after a few years. Ten years after my first foray into professional cookery, I started Stephanie’s Restaurant, which was a very successful business and operated for twenty-one years.

Digital technology was not on the horizon when I was first involved with researching curriculum ideas and activities. How things have changed. Last year I helped create an app for The Cook’s Companion, which divided this monumental work into bundles, and cross-references all of the 2000 recipes by style of dish, main ingredient, and by name. It also includes videos to make sometimes complicated processes easy to understand. All in all it was a huge effort and it definitely appeals to my younger followers who do not always want to cart the three-kilogram volume around when they head off for a holiday or a weekend away. And once again in the design and development of this app my skills of cataloguing, cross-referencing, and of being able to explain a complex process succinctly and with a light touch were very helpful.

I should also say that whilst I was working in libraries I still cooked as often as I could and entertained constantly, so as to practice dishes on my friends. But it never entered my head at school or for years afterwards that I would ever be a professional chef.

I have always said to my many apprentices that no matter where you find yourself there is always something to learn, and that so often what you have learnt in one situation will end up being of value later on.

–

Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion App for iOS and Android is available here. Stephanie publishes special menus each season on her website and her updates can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

–

UTS:INSEARCH gives you another shot at getting into uni if you didn’t get the ATAR you need. They offer courses in Business, Communication, Design & Architecture, Engineering, IT and Science and in some cases can fast-track you into the second year of a UTS degree. Check out insearch.edu.au today.