The men in Stephanie Alexander’s life are mostly ‘husbands of friends or gay’

Stephanie Alexander is an author and cook, best known for her kitchen bible The Cook’s Companion. Here, the 83-year-old shares why her father had to moderate family dinners, the compliments she credits to her high school French teacher and her confusion about why she married a second time.

“I get plenty of hugs from them and I am happy with that. I feel fulfilled in my life.”Credit: Armelle Habib

My paternal grandfather, George, was a fierce and interesting old man. He was radically political. He came back to Australia after his wife died of a stroke in England and lived with us for 25 years in our family home in West Rosebud [now Capel Sound], Victoria.

My mum, Mary, converted her painting studio to accommodate him. His presence in the family home wasn’t always fabulous because dinner table conversations could get quite heated. My father, Winston, had to moderate some of Grandpa’s opinions for the sake of us kids. Grandpa was always writing and arguing about things that weren’t the official line of thought in Australia. He died aged 94.

I worshipped my father – he was great to all his children. He was big on having a balanced view in life and taught us that the world is not black and white, that it needs shades of grey. He’d always say “look it up in the encyclopedia” so it’s no wonder I became a librarian. He ran a caravan park with my mum and later retired to East Melbourne, where he wrote a history of the houses in the area.

My parents met on a Japanese cargo ship in 1937 and married a few years later. Mum was studying Japanese woodblocks and had been in Japan to explore this. My father was coming back to Australia from Europe when he ran out of money and got the cheapest ticket back, which happened to be on a ship with Mum.

I have a great photo of them wearing kimonos and kneeling on cushions on board, eating noodles with chopsticks – which at the time would have been quite extraordinary. Mum and Dad both wrote unpublished biographies, which is how we know so much detail about their lives.

I am the eldest child of four. I have a sister, Diana, who is three years younger, my brother John is eight years younger, and my other brother, Chris, is nine-and-a-half years younger. We had a great childhood in the house my grandpa and dad built. It was big and spacious and we each had our own rooms.

Our summers were spent riding bikes to school and hanging around the caravan park. It was always an exciting time because families came every year, leading to a number of romances that only happened in the holidays.

My French teacher was a big influence on me at Frankston High School when I was in year 9. He taught the class proper pronunciation and I owe him for teaching me the sounds of the language so early on in my life. People still compliment me on my pronunciation.

Dad was very supportive of his kids having experiences in their lives – the more, the better. I moved to London (in the 1960s) to work for the BBC Library. I remember calling my parents to tell them I was marrying a West Indian man I’d met in London [Rupert Montague, known as Monty]. They took that in their stride.

We opened a restaurant, Jamaica House, in Melbourne in 1966. Our child, Lisa, was only three weeks old and we weren’t good to each other at that point because we were both exhausted. We kept it going as long as we could but divorced in 1970.

I got married again in 1973, this time to Maurice. I don’t know why I felt the need to do it [they divorced in 1992], but we do have a beautiful daughter, Holly, now 50.

My mother died quite suddenly of deep vein thrombosis in 1983. In those days, nobody knew about the dangers of air travel and it was a terrible shock. I’d just opened Stephanie’s restaurant and she knew I was writing my first cookbook but didn’t live to see it published. Dad died in 2002.

I am not in a relationship now. I am 83 and these days, while I enjoy the company of lovely male friends, most of them are either the husbands of close friends or they’re gay. I get plenty of hugs from them and I am happy with that. I feel fulfilled in my life.

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