Meet Mandy Kennedy
Hello, let me introduce myself. My name is Mandy and I’ve worked as a barista, a bartender, a cheesemonger and a caterer. I’ve managed a butcher’s shop as well as restaurants and cafes. I’ve worked as a wholesale food rep, slung gin and regularly cooked paella for 100 people.
Background
My background has mostly been centred around people and food. I’ve worked as a barista and a cheesemonger; I’ve managed a butcher shop, restaurants and cafes; I’ve slung gin and regularly cooked paella for 100 people.
Currently, I am lucky enough to have a recurring guest spot on ABC Radio 774 Melbourne on Sunday mornings talking all things food.
I am also a tour guide at Melbourne’s biggest and best food market, the Queen Victoria market. So yeah, I like food.
Feeding Myself
Too often, cookbooks are structured around traditional meal categories—breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert—but life rarely fits into such neat divisions.
What I want to eat when I’m not feeling well differs from what I make for a celebration. We underestimate the impact mood has on what we eat.
Personally, I can’t eat before 11 a.m., yet I love eggs, bacon, and avocado toast as much as the next person. A quiche might be lunch or dinner, and who hasn’t had cereal at night? Arbitrary food “rules” like these can alienate people from their kitchens.
Deciding what to eat is often the first hurdle, not to mention having the right ingredients, confidence, or time. It’s easy to default to takeout, but there’s real satisfaction in knowing you can feed yourself.
25+
years in hospitality
100+
results-driven recipes
Media
I enjoy a recurring guest spot on ABC Radio 774 Melbourne on Sunday mornings with Lisa Leong talking about all things food as their free-ranging foodie.
While I’m not a professional chef, it’s fair to say in my 25-plus years in food and hospitality, I’ve learnt a few things along the way and I have two big takeaways – recipes are ideas, not a set of instructions and we all deserve to eat tasty food.
Recipes are templates
When it comes to recipes – anybody’s recipe – I honestly believe they are just templates. They’re an idea of how to combine ingredients in a particular manner. Don’t like a particular ingredient? Play around with substitutions. You can’t stand green capsicum? Try red or yellow. Yes, it’ll taste different to my version but that’s ok. In fact, I encourage you to make notes in the margins of all your recipe books detailing how you make dishes your own.
I have spent more than a dozen years working with cheese – selling and writing about it mostly – but I’ve always been partial to dairy products of all persuasions.
Many of my recipes lean dairy heavy cause that’s how my tastes roll.
Many moons ago, I managed a butcher shop so I have thoughts about meat, unsurprisingly. I like to know where my meat comes from. If you get the opportunity to buy direct from a producer or at a farmer’s market, great.
