my old paddington bedroom: a room with a view

The author of this site is Jules Clancy. I love food and I love wine and I am the only person I know of crazy enough to have two science degrees:my first in food and the latest in wine science. The only problem with being equally passionate about both food and wine is that my career path is starting to look like a dogs breakfast:

After a normal beginning working in product development in the food industry with a few breaks for travel to Asia, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, I decided to pack in corporate life and try my hand as a winemaker.

This decision lead me to being lucky enough to make wine in some of the most beautiful places in the world: Hunter Valley (NSW Australia), Sonoma (California USA), Alpine Valleys (Victoria Australia), Los Gatos (California USA), McLaren Vale (SA Australia), Barossa Valley (SA Australia), Rhone Valley (France), and Mudgee (NSW Australia). But even a travel addict like myself needs to put down some roots which is why just four short months ago I found myself returning to the multinational cereal producer that is my former (and now current) employer.

UPDATE: Back in May 2007 I was lucky enough to be made redundant which meant the end of my career as a Corn Flake counter (really….that’s what my Dad told people I did) and more importantly an end to my debt. A few weeks later I was offered a job with an Australian icon biscuit business which means that these days my working thoughts are focused on Tim Tams - arguably the worlds best chocolate biscuit - rather than All Bran. Happy Days.

A few facts about me: I am a girl and was born in Australia 33 years ago (where does the time go?). I live in a 1brm apartment with possibly the smallest kitchen in Paddington, Sydney but I absolutely love it. I can see the harbour bridge from my bedroom which makes up for the fact that there is no space for a dishwasher. 

UPDATE: Still female but my recent birthday means that my age isn’t a topic of conversation I get excited about. Paddington has been replaced by Darling Point as my home suburb thanks to my gorgeous friend Missy Helgs making the big move to Melbourne leaving her fabulous leafy apartment up for grabs.

Now home is a 2 bedroom apartment overlooking one of Sydney’s best hidden gems, McKell Park, with harbour glimpses through the trees and arguably the best balcony in Sydney (see view below). The perfect place to indulge my love of long boozy lunches.

I live with my new flatmate Kate who is a doctor specialising in emergency medicine. While my new kitchen definitely won’t be making any claims about being the largest in Darling Point it is positively palatial compared to my last digs and is now the home to a shiny new dishwasher. Joy.

My other interests include family & friends, travel, music, running, laughter, cinema & theature, opera, red shoes (OK…I have a thing for all shoes but red ones really take my fancy for some reason), boating & sailing, growing plants in pots, fish keeping, long boozy lunches and cheese.

You can contact me at jules@thestonesoup.com.

a note about the content on stonesoup:

While I consider most of my food creations my own, I always try to give credit where it is due and acknowledge the source of my inspiration or where I’ve followed a recipe. One of the things I love about cooking is that there is inspiration everywhere and that I am constantly learning new things.

All the photography on this site has been taken with my trusty Nikon D50 using my worth-every-penny macro lense. I find that natural light gives the best results for most photography but is really essential for good food photography so have given up trying to take photos at night.

I believe that with food, just as in life, there is beauty in imperfection. My food styling philosophy is to keep everything as natural and simple as possible and most of all for it still to be real and edible after the picture has been taken. No trickery or elaborate props here.

You can check out more of my photography collection on Flickr.

my new darling point bedroom view - not so shabby