‘I am genuinely on my own': The TV chef living the wild life in Tasmania
Chef Analiese Gregory vowed to tone down the 'adventuring' for the second season of SBS Food's female-centric answer to the River Cottage franchise, A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Cooking. But there she is in the first episode, preparing to scuba dive for crayfish off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, where the Michelin-star trained chef lives since trading the London-Paris-Sydney high life for a simpler existence on the land.
'I'm always putting myself in moderately dangerous situations, maybe because it makes you feel alive,' says the Kiwi chef, who is on during a break in preparing the Winter Feast for MONA gallery's Dark Mofo festival.
The Huon Valley farmhouse we watched her restore in the first season is still a work in progress, as is the kitchen garden, from which she plucks lovage for the crayfish omelette she plans to cook on the beach. Sheep have joined the yard, as has a dog named Kana (a Maori word for 'sea urchin'). An Italian truffle-hunting breed called Lagotto Romagnolo, Kana has so far managed to forage a mushroom.
There is another addition to the farm that upsets the image of solo female independence – Gregory's partner, Hobart chef and restaurateur Kobi Ruzicka. 'He lives in Hobart, so it's a very modern relationship,' says Gregory. 'But I am genuinely on my own in the country with my dog most of the time, just trying to muddle through.'
Gregory was just 16 when she left the family dairy farm on New Zealand's North Island to train in London. 'I've always lived that way. I'm like, 'I'm going to move to France!', and I just do it.'
But after regular restorative escapes to Tasmania during her years with chef Peter Gilmore (who appears in season two) at Sydney's Quay Restaurant, the pull of the quieter island state and its abundance of produce became too strong. 'Being part of big-city life for many years, and having high-pressure jobs, I think I needed to do that to value [farm life], and to want to come full circle.'
A post-pandemic diagnosis helped Gregory make sense of her exceptional ability to focus under stress. In the series, she rarely appears ruffled, even when experiencing a panic attack during the crayfishing dive.
'From my 20 years in a commercial kitchen, you learn to internalise stress,' she says. 'And I've been diagnosed with autism, so maybe I do have a bit of that blank face. But it doesn't mean there aren't things going on below the surface … I went through a period of grieving for life being harder than maybe it needed to be, and then acceptance, and then learning to understand myself better … I think that in ways [autism] makes things harder for me, and in other ways it probably makes things easier. I do get hyper-focused and will stay up all night building bee frames to go in the beehive and things like that.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
4 hours ago
- Perth Now
Kitchen Nightmares star Gordon Ramsay passed out as Ed Sheeran's music played during son's birth
Gordon Ramsay passed out when his son was born - as Ed Sheeran's songs played in the background. The 58-year-old TV chef was never in the delivery room for the births of his first four children - Megan, 26, fraternal twins Jack and Holly, 25, and 23-year-old Tilly - because his wife Tana Ramsay was adamant that she didn't want her husband to see her in the agony of labour, nor witness the realities of child birth. Gordon though was present when his son Oscar, six, came into the world as Tana was having their baby boy via caesarean section. But the Kitchen Nightmares star's moment of joy soon soon became a moment of panic when he feinted whilst holding the newborn, all to the soundtrack of Thinking Out Loud singer Sheeran. Appearing on the Smartless podcast, Gordon said: "Let's make one thing absolutely clear, my wife didn't want me in there. "First of all, she said, 'I want my mum and your mum in there, you're not going to see me in that state, that side of the curtain, get out of there.' That was her decision and I had to respect that decision. 'When I did final arrive in the theatre for our fifth baby I f****** collapsed like a wimp! I blacked out holding Oscar in the air. 'He was coming through the sun roof so there was a lot of commotion going on. They said, 'What do you want to listen to?' So I said, 'Can you play Ed Sheeran?' So they started playing Ed, they turned up the volume, I can hear all these noises, all of a sudden I see two more doctors dive in, I look to the floor and there was blood everywhere. They popped him out and then they came straight over to me and I went, 'Woah, woah, s***.' I sat back and I collapsed like a f****** idiot." Gordon and Tana - who also have son Jesse James, who was born in 2023 - are enjoying being parents to young children again to Oscar and his younger brother Jesse James, who was born in 2023. The three Michelin star chef has always tried to instil a work ethic in his older four children and not hand them everything on a plate just because they are fortunate enough to have wealthy parents. Gordon is very proud of the varied career paths each of his older children have taken, but he is a little disappointed that his daughter Tilly, who wants to be a chef, decided to be trained at Ireland's Ballymaloe Cookery School rather than at one of her father's restaurants. He said: "Balance is critical. Every time we were filming throughout the US the kids would come with us and then we were take them out of school two weeks early, and they put them back two weeks late, so we would do the filming schedules around the shooting schedules. 'It's a lot easier now, we had four amazing kids and then Tana and I has this crazy idea to go back for more. So there's quite a big gap. 'Megan, she's our eldest, she's 26, she's an incredible police officer back in London. Then we have the twins who are 25; Jack is a Royal Marines Commando, Holly is in to her fashion. And then there's Matilda, who is 23, who has just come back from culinary school, would you believe, a beautiful school called Ballymaloe. "I am a little bit miffed that she didn't ask me to train her and she's gone off elsewhere. She's seen the shows, that's the problem! 'You've got to give them the values, and instil those values, they can't depend on mum and dad."
Sydney Morning Herald
11 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
One of the most powerful artworks I've seen is on show in Tasmania
The exhibition takes its name from one of the installations, a new work made up of a series of five water wells sitting in pitch darkness behind a glass wall. Into these, molten steel drips at hypnotic intervals, generating sparks reminiscent of a working foundry, although these sparks are artfully curated. An earlier version debuted at the 2022 Venice Biennale, where Sassolino used fiery droplets of molten steel to evoke what he described as the dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio's 17th-century paintings, specifically The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. In this version, the chiaroscuro is certainly dramatic. While it's difficult to imagine a saintly beheading amid the sparks, the eight-minute sequence, observed from pews placed for this purpose, is mesmerising, in the tradition of the transcendent religious artworks adorning Europe's great cathedrals. In the end, the beginning is a perfect addition to a gallery famed for its kinetic displays and its inherent subversion of the Catholic faith in which MONA founder David Walsh was raised. Sassolino's precision engineering is 21st century, but his choice of materials and fascination with old-fashioned masculine energy are furiously at odds with a planet economically realigning around the rare earth mineral economy as it gears up for the decarbonisation revolution. Elegant as it is, the exhibition feels like one last loving look over the shoulder as we move into a future where harnessing the energy of wind and sun assures the survival of the species. Being sensorially receptive is an essential state for visiting MONA, the privately owned art museum and collection of Tasmanian gambling millionaire Walsh. Since it opened in January 2011, it has been an undisputed curatorial game changer in the Australian art world. MONA's growing permanent collection and temporary displays owe more to the practices of contemporary biennales than art museums, yet its arrival freed up Australia's public galleries to be more experimental and playful. Before MONA, they tended to be wedded to chronological white-wall exhibitions, but this unashamedly gonzo new entrant was cashed up and unconstrained by curatorial committees, boards, public funding, or the need to observe rules or regulations. Walsh led from the front, encouraging his collaborators to move fast and break things. MONA is firmly part of the art establishment now, the sum of the considerable experience Walsh and his team have amassed, and of Australian galleries having relaxed. Coinciding with the exhibition's early June opening was Dark Mofo, David Walsh's festival encompassing live music, the sprawling Winter Feast food market, and various indoor and outdoor art activations throughout Hobart CBD. The festival made its return this year under new artistic director Chris Twite, following a hiatus in 2024. With its music, food, numerous bars, and warming fire pits for the bundled-up crowds, Dark Mofo evokes a blokey theme park. It carries the air of a last hurrah of the heterosexual white man. In the right-on landscape of Australian arts, there's something incredibly quaint about experiencing what feels like a Gen X fun park. Indeed, Dark Mofo offers a wondrously unique and intriguing experience, almost as if it's an arts festival from a world that froze in 1994, upon Kurt Cobain's death. Loading Unapologetically created in Walsh's image, music headliners ranged across punk, electronica and the 'extreme metal and absurdist mayhem' of US outfit Clown Core. Winter Feast is as visually arresting as its offerings are smokey and delicious, by no mistake. There is wild goat, wallaby and camel on the menu, their skeletons arranged above the grill long after the flesh has been stripped. A free public event during opening weekend's prime-time Saturday night was a theatrical car crash featuring two BMWs, complete with doughnuts, pungent rubber burnouts, and dazzling sound and lighting. Look out for the video. Crash Body, conceived by Brazilian artist Paula Garcia, drew thousands to the wet, windy Regatta Grounds overlooking the Derwent, framed by the Tasman Bridge. This site is also earmarked for the proposed AFL stadium, a controversial project that led to the state's premier being ousted the day before. Dark Mofo's free public art program is like a biennale in style, albeit on a walkable Hobart scale. Visually, the event is connected throughout Hobart by red lights and inverted crucifixes. These deliciously symbolise the humility of St Peter, who asked to be crucified upside down to put himself beneath Jesus Christ, but are alternatively symbolic of Satanism. Choose your own adventure. Loading Among the legacies of David Walsh's everyman approach to MONA is the enthusiasm with which audiences in Tasmania engage with the arts. Free events on the opening weekend were packed, many ticketed events sold out, and the general confidence of people interacting with artworks was impressive. Nicholas Galanin's Neon Anthem called on people to kneel on one knee and scream, a comment on the Black Lives Matter movement possibly lost in this execution, but in which nearly everyone who walked past nonetheless participated, generating waves of screams like you might hear near a roller coaster. Brigita Ozolins' beautiful exhibition on banned books, Revolution and Silence at the State Library and Archives of Tasmania, will remain open until October. It's a gentle meditation on social mores in stark contrast to Dark Mofo's in-your-face headliners. Dark Mofo's highly sought-after Night Mass events were, once again, sold out. Thousands of revellers explored the multi-stage, all-night jamboree of music, performance art, and installations that transformed a city block into something resembling a sticky-carpet nightclub adorned with share-house decor. I haven't even mentioned Simon Zoric's Coffin Rides (as it says on the tin) or the Sex + Death Day Spa installation at MONA, where a nana in a white towelling robe at the entry deadpanned options: 'Do you want anal bleaching or a Brazilian?' Did I mention the 90s?
The Age
11 hours ago
- The Age
One of the most powerful artworks I've seen is on show in Tasmania
The exhibition takes its name from one of the installations, a new work made up of a series of five water wells sitting in pitch darkness behind a glass wall. Into these, molten steel drips at hypnotic intervals, generating sparks reminiscent of a working foundry, although these sparks are artfully curated. An earlier version debuted at the 2022 Venice Biennale, where Sassolino used fiery droplets of molten steel to evoke what he described as the dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio's 17th-century paintings, specifically The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. In this version, the chiaroscuro is certainly dramatic. While it's difficult to imagine a saintly beheading amid the sparks, the eight-minute sequence, observed from pews placed for this purpose, is mesmerising, in the tradition of the transcendent religious artworks adorning Europe's great cathedrals. In the end, the beginning is a perfect addition to a gallery famed for its kinetic displays and its inherent subversion of the Catholic faith in which MONA founder David Walsh was raised. Sassolino's precision engineering is 21st century, but his choice of materials and fascination with old-fashioned masculine energy are furiously at odds with a planet economically realigning around the rare earth mineral economy as it gears up for the decarbonisation revolution. Elegant as it is, the exhibition feels like one last loving look over the shoulder as we move into a future where harnessing the energy of wind and sun assures the survival of the species. Being sensorially receptive is an essential state for visiting MONA, the privately owned art museum and collection of Tasmanian gambling millionaire Walsh. Since it opened in January 2011, it has been an undisputed curatorial game changer in the Australian art world. MONA's growing permanent collection and temporary displays owe more to the practices of contemporary biennales than art museums, yet its arrival freed up Australia's public galleries to be more experimental and playful. Before MONA, they tended to be wedded to chronological white-wall exhibitions, but this unashamedly gonzo new entrant was cashed up and unconstrained by curatorial committees, boards, public funding, or the need to observe rules or regulations. Walsh led from the front, encouraging his collaborators to move fast and break things. MONA is firmly part of the art establishment now, the sum of the considerable experience Walsh and his team have amassed, and of Australian galleries having relaxed. Coinciding with the exhibition's early June opening was Dark Mofo, David Walsh's festival encompassing live music, the sprawling Winter Feast food market, and various indoor and outdoor art activations throughout Hobart CBD. The festival made its return this year under new artistic director Chris Twite, following a hiatus in 2024. With its music, food, numerous bars, and warming fire pits for the bundled-up crowds, Dark Mofo evokes a blokey theme park. It carries the air of a last hurrah of the heterosexual white man. In the right-on landscape of Australian arts, there's something incredibly quaint about experiencing what feels like a Gen X fun park. Indeed, Dark Mofo offers a wondrously unique and intriguing experience, almost as if it's an arts festival from a world that froze in 1994, upon Kurt Cobain's death. Loading Unapologetically created in Walsh's image, music headliners ranged across punk, electronica and the 'extreme metal and absurdist mayhem' of US outfit Clown Core. Winter Feast is as visually arresting as its offerings are smokey and delicious, by no mistake. There is wild goat, wallaby and camel on the menu, their skeletons arranged above the grill long after the flesh has been stripped. A free public event during opening weekend's prime-time Saturday night was a theatrical car crash featuring two BMWs, complete with doughnuts, pungent rubber burnouts, and dazzling sound and lighting. Look out for the video. Crash Body, conceived by Brazilian artist Paula Garcia, drew thousands to the wet, windy Regatta Grounds overlooking the Derwent, framed by the Tasman Bridge. This site is also earmarked for the proposed AFL stadium, a controversial project that led to the state's premier being ousted the day before. Dark Mofo's free public art program is like a biennale in style, albeit on a walkable Hobart scale. Visually, the event is connected throughout Hobart by red lights and inverted crucifixes. These deliciously symbolise the humility of St Peter, who asked to be crucified upside down to put himself beneath Jesus Christ, but are alternatively symbolic of Satanism. Choose your own adventure. Loading Among the legacies of David Walsh's everyman approach to MONA is the enthusiasm with which audiences in Tasmania engage with the arts. Free events on the opening weekend were packed, many ticketed events sold out, and the general confidence of people interacting with artworks was impressive. Nicholas Galanin's Neon Anthem called on people to kneel on one knee and scream, a comment on the Black Lives Matter movement possibly lost in this execution, but in which nearly everyone who walked past nonetheless participated, generating waves of screams like you might hear near a roller coaster. Brigita Ozolins' beautiful exhibition on banned books, Revolution and Silence at the State Library and Archives of Tasmania, will remain open until October. It's a gentle meditation on social mores in stark contrast to Dark Mofo's in-your-face headliners. Dark Mofo's highly sought-after Night Mass events were, once again, sold out. Thousands of revellers explored the multi-stage, all-night jamboree of music, performance art, and installations that transformed a city block into something resembling a sticky-carpet nightclub adorned with share-house decor. I haven't even mentioned Simon Zoric's Coffin Rides (as it says on the tin) or the Sex + Death Day Spa installation at MONA, where a nana in a white towelling robe at the entry deadpanned options: 'Do you want anal bleaching or a Brazilian?' Did I mention the 90s?
