Fiona Weir Walmsley is a Gerringong farmer, cook and first-time published author with her book From Scratch hitting the shelves earlier this month.
Fiona, husband Adam and their three children live on Buena Vista Farm, in a picturesque setting south of the coastal township. Her great-great-grandfather bought the property in 1859 and more recently Fiona’s parents ran it as a dairy farm.
Fiona, Adam and the children moved onto a seven-hectare portion of the original farm in 2012 when her father retired from dairy farming. Their intention was to have a small sustainable operation to support their young family. Once on the farm, Fiona started a blog called “Inner Pickle” and later “Slice of Wednesday”, which brought together her loves of food, farm life, cooking, creative writing and photography. It was here that the seeds of the cookbook were sown (pun intended).
Drawing on her background in commercial cookery, Fiona runs a cooking school from the property’s commercial kitchen. It was through this enterprise that I first met Fiona and saw firsthand the productivity from the farm and the kitchen.
In February 2020, in bushfire-extinguishing rain and just before the world changed, I made the trek to Gerringong with two friends to attend a “From Scratch” workshop. Welcomed with morning tea of homemade goodies, we settled into the commercial kitchen to make yoghurt, butter, sourdough, “visitor biscuits”, pickles, jam and crackers. We learned how to make our own sourdough starter and maintain it before the pandemic-induced sourdough obsession. We were treated to an amazing lunch and a tour of the farm. We left with inspiration, recipes and notes, as well as the edible results of our time in the kitchen.
Speaking to Fiona this week about life on the farm and her new book, I asked her about the start of her cooking from scratch enthusiasm. She explains that it began with her food-sensitive toddler, Henry, now 18.
Henry had reactions to various store-bought foods that Fiona assumed were “healthy”, like vanilla yoghurt. She researched food allergies and found a book called Fed Up by an Australian psychologist and mother, Sue Dengate. Like Fiona, Sue became aware of the effects on health of food additives following the birth of her first child. Armed with this knowledge, Fiona began to prepare food for her family rather than buying the processed and packaged options.
As Covid lockdowns and isolation became apparent, with workshops on hold, Fiona began to hatch (again, pun intended) the idea of the book with her publisher. She wanted it to be more than a cookbook – also a compendium of her life and work, a documentation and resource for her children. The book has more than 200 recipes, anecdotes about life on the farm and her cooking philosophies but is never preachy.
Fiona says: “At no point do I want to link cooking from scratch with the idea of living your best life.” She emphasises that her recipes are reprising how things used to be done before processed and packaged food became so readily available and well marketed. She calls her book “a hand holding” for home cooks.
I asked about how, as producers, the family coped with the extensive rain earlier this year. She says it was a stressful and anxious time. Due to the flooding, Buena Vista no longer has a market garden. Also, the goats hate the rain, retreating to the hay shed. She explains how the cost of the goats’ bedding has substantially increased.
Fiona remains philosophical about the effects of supply disruption and price rises caused by the adverse weather conditions. She explains that farmers, particularly those in livestock, have an optimistic long-term view – there will always be droughts and floods. Previously, the costs have been absorbed by farmers and consumers shielded from price rises. This time is different, and Fiona speculates that consumers may now be more aware of where their food comes from and more sympathetic to the true cost.
Fiona is a role model and mentor for people who want to learn more about sustainable living and cooking from scratch. While her new book advocates the benefits, she is keen to point out that it should not “stress you out”.
"It is not written to tell you that you should make all the things all the time in order to subvert capitalism,” she writes, and then adds “although that’s an excellent idea”.
The benefits are many (see Take 3 – Tips for cooking from scratch).
Now, the main output from the farm is goat's cheese from the dairy goat herd, but they also have chickens, turkeys, ducks, pigs, bees, a coffee grove and commercial cut flowers (in summer). Tours of the farm, including cheese tasting, are available. Fiona is also running sourdough and cheesemaking workshops. You can find Buena Vista goat's cheese at Kiama and Berry Markets and at Pines Pantry in Kiama.
To find out more, buy the book, buy cheese, join a tour or a sign up for a workshop, visit the website
