The yellow school bus pulls off the main road and lunges to a halt. My brothers and I cross the road gingerly, three small figures in the soft afternoon sun. There’s the drone of a tractor in a far-off paddock, the occasional screech of a galah in the tall gums above. I head straight for the four-gallon drum perched sideways atop a wooden post at the start of the gravel track that winds up the hill to the house. It is hot to the touch.

I lift the little flap door that’s designed to keep out the birds and possums to be greeted by the unmistakable smell of freshly baked bread. Inside is a double hi-top, tall and crusty, joined at the middle and wrapped in a slip of tissue paper.  Morris’s, the local bakery, does the bread run out to Kybybolite three times a week, delivering fresh loaves to farm boxes along the roadside, and stopping at the Hynam general store to cater for the 10 or so families who live in the town.

My hand is in the drum pulling out the hi-top that’s still warm in its makeshift oven. I take a whiff. There is something profound in the smell of fresh bread, something so grounding and ancient that connects us to those who have toiled the land, to all who have broken bread. Today I am unusually hungry but it’s only a 15 minute walk to the house. The bread is expected home in one piece.

I start to walk up the track. My elder brother has gone ahead on his bike that was hidden behind a big gum. My younger brother is inspecting a bull-ant nest. The bread smells so good. Just a nibble won’t hurt. I break the loaf in two and put one half in my school bag. A ridiculously big bag that looks like a small suitcase made of thick cardboard. Inside is nothing but my empty lunch box rattling around, and my reader. I pick at the soft, white fluff and dodge a blue-tongue lizard basking in a stupor before pulling at more bread, like fairy floss. I’m nearly at the crest of the hill now as I dig further into the bread. It occurs to me that it may be a little late to patch the  loaf up now. A sudden rush of guilt washes over me. I jump over the stock grid, where the sign Langkyne signals the entrance to our property. My younger brother catches me up and rips a handful of bread from the soft centre. Let’s face it, it’s too late now.

I put my case squarely over my head to walk past the row of pines, shielding myself from the swooping magpies that nest here in springtime. At least it has some use! One hundred yards to the house. The sheepdogs run to greet us. I open the back door and hand my mother a beautifully hollowed-out crust of bread.

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Welcome to my new blog, Knife & Fork in the Road! I thought it only fitting that my first post include one of the very first forks I remember, a rather large one used to cook our morning toast. The toasting fork was a common utensil used in daily life on rural properties when I was a small child. Like many farms, we had our own lighting plant and 32 volt power, and on 32 volt you weren’t able to run any heating appliances, and that included a toaster.

There was an art to the toasting fork. The bread had to be thread just right so that it didn’t fall off into the coals, and also be held at just the right distance from the fire so that it didn’t catch alight. Unfortunately, our toasting fork is now long gone but daily rituals and routines carried out as a child have a way of sticking in your mind, whether it be cooking toast over hot coals in rural Australia or running down to the boulangerie for a warm baguette in Paris.

I have always looked at the world through food and many of my earliest memories revolve around the kitchen from my country childhood. With its constant comings and goings, the kitchen was the centre of my mother’s world and the heart of our farm. From daybreak until late into the night, the kitchen was where we gathered, talked, cooked and ate…where there was always a homemade biscuit in the tin, ABC blaring on the radio, and someone popping in for afternoon tea. It was a comfortable, secure cocoon filled with love, food and activity, a high-traffic place that we ran into with fresh mulberries, buckets of mushrooms or a lemon from the tree, and out again with a square of caramel slice or slice of warm chocolate cake.

In winter, there was always something simmering away on the stove top to slurp a spoonful of: pea and ham soup or a lamb stew that filled the house with its sweet, reassuring aroma. The stove was where we warmed our hands after the walk home from the bus stop, and cooked pikelets on the hot plate. From the oven came the smell of cakes baking for the shearer’s smoko or sticky, slow-roasted legs of mutton, while the top racks had myriad functions from rising buns to drying the Adelaide Advertiser before its pages could be read. Thrown daily from the main road dressed in nothing but a flimsy white paper girdle, the paper was often drenched, heavy and forlorn by the time we found it in long grass by the roadside.

The hearth revived sick baby chicks, and now and again, my father, soft at heart, would come through the back door cradling a newborn lamb that had been left for dead in the paddock. We would make a warm bed on the hearth where it slowly recuperated, often with the aid of a pipette or two of brandy.

And then there was the slow bottom oven that always seemed to contain a batch of meringues, a sensible way to use up all those eggs.

These early memories have not only stoked a lifelong passion for fresh seasonal food, but a constant search for addresses with a strong sense of place and authenticity, places that are honest, real and inviting, and passionate about their produce. Although I love the glamour of a gorgeous five-star hotel, and the thrill of dining in a Michelin-starred restaurant, it is the everyday places where the locals go, whether in Paris or Adelaide, that make my heart sing the most, perhaps because in some ephemeral way, they remind me of the warmth of my childhood.

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