Back when I was doing a PhD in the highly practical field of Medieval French, the student radio station at Canterbury University, RDU, put a call out to the French Department. Stereolab, a London-based Anglo-French avant-pop band, were playing at the Lumière Midcity in Christchurch and they needed someone to voice an ad. I volunteered.
After the recording, one of the RDU crew told me I had a great voice for radio and that I should jump on a show sometime. So I did. I co-hosted an arts program, then moved over to Lyttelton’s community station, Volcano Radio, where I hosted Repertoire, a weekly show where I spoke to people doing things they loved: singers, artists, martial arts fanatics, jewellery makers. I even interviewed a young Marlon Williams, who was gigging around local pubs and working at the Lyttelton Dairy at the time, long before the world discovered his voice of liquid gold.
At the same time, one of my closest friends, Nicky, was a head chef with years of experience in London kitchens. Whenever we talked about food, techniques, traditions, the inner workings of restaurants, I was hooked. I’d walk away thinking, “People need to hear this.” And the name Conversation with a Chef popped into my head. I didn’t know what it would become: a book? A column? A documentary?
Then I moved to Melbourne, toting that Kiwi DIY spirit, and volunteered for a local community newspaper called The Northsider. One day, they asked if I wanted to be the Food Editor; all my Christmases at once. That’s where Conversation with a Chef properly began: a series of Q&A-style interviews with chefs, published on the website. It was a way to share their stories, their philosophies, and the strange and beautiful world of food from their point of view.
Eventually, after a bit of a push, the conversations turned into a podcast. I absolutely love that I get to speak to talented chefs who love what they do, and why they do it.
To think it all started with Stereolab. And Stereolab have just put out their eleventh studio album after a fifteen-year hiatus. Hence the origin story!
