The author of this site is Jules Clancy. I’m a food scientist, published author, photographer, type 2 diabetic and food & wine lover.
I live in the Australian ‘bush’ near Canberra about 2.5 hours inland Sydney with my husband, a dashing Irishman, our two young sons Fergal and Finbar, some chooks, lots of kangaroos and the odd tiger snake.
I grew up on a sheep farm, the eldest of 5 children and was lucky to have a mother who was an inspirational country cook. My love of food developed at an early age but it wasn’t until I went to boarding school and had to make do with convent food that I realised just how special my mum’s cooking was.
When I left school I toyed with the idea of becoming a chef but in the end decided to study food science at university.
After I graduated I landed a job in product development for Kellogg which was great fun. After some soul searching during a year traveling in Europe and Asia, I decided to venture into the world of wine and enrolled in the wine science course at Charles Sturt University.
This lead me on a great adventure making wine in some of the most beautiful places in the world: From the Hunter and Barossa Valleys in Australia, to Sonoma and Los Gatos in California USA to the home of Shiraz – the Rhone Valley in France. I loved my days as a roving winemaker, but I finally came to the realisation that wine is more fun to drink than make and that the world of food is where I really need to be.
So I returned to Sydney and to Kellogg, happy to have a job where there was no requirement for lifting heavy things. And where I could wear pretty shoes with heels everyday rather than soggy winemakers boots. About the same time I discovered food blogs and became hooked. It wasn’t long before I found myself stretching my mediocre computer skills and investing in a digital SLR camera to start Stonesoup.
My next job was designing chocolate biscuits and cookies for a living – I know it was tough but someone had to do it. But even a dream job working with Tim Tams is still a ‘job’. So in January 2010 I packed in corporate life to become a full time blogger focusing on Stonesoup.
And haven’t looked back.
In 2009 I self published my first book ‘and the love is free’ – a cookbook that celebrates the beautiful life of my Mum. And in 2013 Penguin books published my first proper cookbook ‘5-Ingredients 10-Minutes‘ which is available in Italian and English!
The other thing you should know about me is that I love simplicity and making things as quick and easy as possible. I just adore the fact that I’ve been able to combine my two passions for good food and simplicity in my blog and my business.
I founded the Stonesoup Virtual Cookery School in 2011 because I believe that the ability to cook simple, healthy, delicious food is a basic skill, like reading, that everyone should and can have.
When I’m not cooking, writing about food or taking photographs [of food], I can be found hanging out with my husband, ‘the Irishman’ and our sons Fergal and Finbar. Or indulging my passions for growing my own veggies, cookbooks, knitting, long walks in the country, red wine, red shoes and blue cheese.
If you are interested in where the name Stonesoup came from you can read about it OVER HERE.
You can contact me at jules [at] thestonesoup [dot] com
my [old] place – a room with a view