Exile From Mainland

A new city, the same hunger.

So, let’s try this again.

The old adage is, don’t meet your heroes. I must have strayed between bullets in this regard, because most of the heroes I’ve met have been lovely. I once met Ryan Adams at an airport, and he was impossibly sweet and friendly, despite prevailing views. He even called over his then wife, Mandy Moore, to take a photo of us. I can’t say Mandy is a hero of mine, but she sure was sweet too.

I worked for a time at the ultimately disastrous Maze by Gordon Ramsay at Crown Casino, and once had occasion to meet the man himself. The on-screen persona is only slightly more intense than the in-person experience; aggressively affable, Gordon’s handshake transferred a level of inspiration into my body that I don’t think I’d ever felt before. Some years later, I ran into Gordon (in a somewhat lessened state) at Melbourne’s Supper Club. He not only remembered my name, but remembered I told him I’d dreamed of owning a restaurant, and asked enthuiastically how I was going. It was the second time we’d spoken. Perhaps you should meet your heroes.

Another, less fallible adage: follow your dreams. Want to be happy? Do what you love. Pursue it with all your might, and you’ll never work a day in your life. Unfortunately, I’ve found this to be largely bullshit. Nonetheless I remain resolutely interested in being happy at some stage of my life. I’ll explain.

I always thought I wanted to own hospitality businesses, and I did. I always thought I'd like to one day parlay that into working in food media, and writing about it. And I did. And, candidly, it happened much more organically than I thought it would. After only six months of concerted effort, I was getting paid to write about food. News, reviews, opinions; opportunity after opportunity came my way, each more thrilling than the next. I was getting free food. I was getting invited to things. It was weird, but it felt right, like some sort of bizarre karmic repayment for twenty years of spine-morphing hospo toil. I was doing it. I was doing a good job. I was enjoying it. But I wasn’t happy.

And in the meanwhile, as Chinua Achebe would say, things fall apart. I won’t go into too many private details, but suffice to say, my life’s trajectory and identity are dramatically different than they were 6 months ago. Maybe it’s for the best, this rapture, but what is undeniably true is that it’s too early to tell. Unfortunately, the first byproduct of incredibly deep pain and sorrow, for me, was finger paralysis. I could no longer write, and I largely lost interest in my passion for food and drink. I was no longer proud of my writing, or where it had led me. And everything needed to change.

So here we are. A lease ends, a business ends, a relationship ends, writing commitments end, all neatly aligned in one small period of time. The feeling that there is nothing keeping you tied to a place is a jarring, freeing, cold gust of wind. The feeling that you have wrung every last drop of blood from a situation , a town, a pathway, that you possibly could, is cold comfort. So I loaded up the car and just drove.

Through happenstance, an opportunity arose to move to Tasmania. It might not have been what I wanted, but I hope in time it will be what I need. A return to the workforce, for a great business that is hospitality and tourism adjacent and provides a great work/life balance, was appealing. Candidly, after almost a decade of hustling to create something for myself, the thought of a freelance writer’s life of living invoice to invoice was beyond my capabilities at that time.

And, if you’re going to escape, where better than Hobart, perhaps the only Australian city that challenges Melbourne for creativity and artistic ambition. A thriving food scene, a genuine community, and the complete immersion into almost unbearably beautiful nature. It feels pure, clean, fresh. Am I happy? No, but I’m closer than ever, and feeling things a little more often than I had been. 

So, this is a Hobart and Tasmania eating blog now. It feels like the perfect time to be here, at the intersection of exciting tourism initiatives and a constantly evolving food scene that drives the state into genuine international destination relevance. I hope you’ll follow along as I get to know my new home, one plate and glass at a time.

I’ll still always be a Melburnian; that sneer doesn’t wash off so easily. But for now, I’m something in between, feeling my way through the dark.

Still hungry, still thirsty, still curious.