I grew up in northeast Victoria. My parents moved to the King Valley (Victoria) when I was about 8 years old in search of a more holistic lifestyle, ending up on a picturesque apple orchard complete with ramshackle cottage an old International tractor, where I went on to spend my childhood and teenage years.

I was the ‘assistant carer’ (mum was the primary carer) to many orphaned farm animals; lambs, calves, kids, even a little gosling, who we named Charlie and hatched out of an egg under a lamp after he had been evicted from the nest. He pretty much thought he was part of the family, well, come to think of it, so did Candy, Snowy, Jessica, Maxy and all of the other pets that we adopted over the years, and which essentially, they were. Oh, and there was Webster, our pet orphaned Joey…

Then there was dad’s vegie patch that yielded copious quantities of beans, peas, tomatoes and a cornucopia of other fruit and vegetables. Naturally it was more than could be consumed. The apples were sold to the locals or traded for watermelons, cherries and nuts – more food. Mum was a ‘waste not want not’ type of person and spent most of her time preserving all the excess; dill pickles, jams, fruits in syrup, you name it, our pantry was full of jars… and more jars!

Then there was the slaughter, lamb for meat, chickens for Sunday roast and Geese for Christmas dinner and God help dad if he accidentally slaughtered one with a name – I found that the silent treatment does not bring them back and mentioning the name during the course of the dinner didn’t benefit anyone; no one wants to continue eating once they are informed that it is Maxy that is on their plate (even if it wasn’t)!

While I spent many hours in the kitchen with my mother, she was also the impetus for much of my creativity.  There wasn’t anything that she could not paint, sculpt, knit, embroider, crochet or sew, and as a child I was encourage to do the same.

As a teen, I spent many hours designing my own clothes. I would save my lunch money so that I could purchase fabric that I would then dye, print and sew into fabulous creations for partying in on the weekends – and I would pick grapes in the holiday season so I could afford to buy the shoes to go with the outfits – innovation and improvisation was the key.

While living in the country was the perfect childhood, the appreciation was lost in my teenage years when all I wanted to do was move back to the city.

Leaving school, I spent a year in Germany where I became fluent in German (especially its slang) and developed a deep understanding for my cultural background.

Returning to Australia, I then set my sights on Melbourne where I was to work a number of mundane jobs, eventually stumbling onto a job in an exclusive millinery workshop, Ronald Bernard, in Toorak, where I felt that I had temporarily found my calling… that was until motherhood called instead…

However, design never left me and I briefly launched my own label… which I quickly lost interest in as the demands of motherhood took precedence, and then through a complete about-face… I found food.

It was on the Sunshine Coast that I really explored food and it became a driving passion and somewhere along the way culminated in three cookbooks (A Gourmet Odyssey – Noosa to Mooloolaba, Ginger – the flavours and the flowers, and Shane Stanley’s Noosa Farmers’ Market), as well as Local Harvest (www.localharvest.com.au) an online regional food directory for the Sunshine Coast and Regional Foodie, an award winning magazine dedicated exclusively to Sunshine Coast food.

As time went on I morphed into a photographer focusing largely on food and flowers as my subjects and I frequently consult on many things food related as well as writing the restaurant reviews, for the now demised, weekender magazine, a job that was more of a favourite pastime than a job in the real sense of the word.

While food is definitely my passion, of recent times I have become involved in other projects that have captured my interest and would like to treat this website as a bit of a ‘hub’ for all that I am doing.

Ideas are flowing all the time and I take inspiration from so many things; nature, colour, textures, life, dreams… and of course, food.   Inevitably it is my senses that dictate what I do the most.  I am constantly moved by vivid colours or seductive fragrances or flavours.  I love the beauty of good design, adore all things pretty, and worship the quirky. I love music, and sound, but I also like the quietude of a silent mind, even though I am probably one of the noisiest people I know.

Pebbles + Pomegranate Seeds is about rediscovering my passions and following my dreams. It is about finding beauty, exploring the weird and the whacky, reconnecting with the old and the new, or simply enjoying the now.

What you are not going to find on this website are scathing reviews or caustic criticisms – I have no time for them.  There are so many wonderful things to write about – why expend time and energy writing about something that is not.

While I promote, endorse and perpetually praise anything and everything that will come to be the content of my blog, I will not promote, endorse or perpetually praise anything that I don’t personally like, love, believe in or want to know more about. If there is something that is prospectively fabulous and I haven’t written about it yet, I either possibly plan to, or it ended up being not up to scratch and I am not going to. It is that simple.

So here it is Pebbles + Pomegranate Seeds – I hope you enjoy being a part of my world as much as I enjoy being a part of yours.

Life is good…

Enjoy…