Ballantyne Forder Feature

“Letting all of my loved ones know I am safe during this massive earthquake. The orphanage, some locals and I have been camping in a field since 12pm yesterday, praying for our safety. Please keep myself and the beautiful people of Nepal in your prayers at this time. Rest in peace to the many lives already lost..”

Ballantyne Forder’s phone had been flat. Dead flat. In the midst of the Nepal Earthquake that hit a magnitude of 7.8 and killed more than 8000 people on April 25 last year, she used her own body heat to give enough life to her phone for one facebook post. It was a desperate attempt to reach out to her friends and family and assure them that she was alive.

Now sitting in her Perth bedroom, smiling warmly through her webcam, Billie experiences all kinds of emotions – devastation, sorrow, gratitude and zest – as she recalls the experience she will never forget.  

“I had my 21^st birthday all planned out,” she starts. It would be a day surrounded by Nepalese orphans at the nearby park, sharing food, laughter and gifts with the children. “My friends basically thought I was crazy!” She laughs, “But when I had a dream to go to Nepal, something kind of clicked for me. I realised that this was where my priorities were and suddenly I didn’t see the excitement in going out and doing all these worldly things. I’d prefer to be helping and in my element.”

Two months into her three month volunteering stint, Billie made a sudden change to her plans. “It was so unlike me. I had every single day down pat to a tee. Where I was meant to be, what lunch I was having, where I was going for lunch. But I just felt strongly to go to an orphanage that I wasn’t meant to go to. So I contacted them and travelled about three hours to get there.”

It was during this journey from the buzzing tourist town of Pokhara to the small, modest village of Bradrakali that she unknowingly moved from haven to hazard. “I was moving towards the epicentre of the earthquake. But if I didn’t have that gut instinct, all of the orphans [in Bradrakali] would have died.” She pauses and nods slowly, looking down as she prepares to describe the next day’s turn of events.

“I arrived and the two sisters who were temporarily looking after the orphanage were unwell, so I took the kids to church by myself. As we were getting all 16 boys and girls ready, braiding the girls’ hair and gelling the boys’, the eldest boy stands up out of nowhere and walks over as if speaking to an audience… “This is what we do if we ever have an earthquake, someone told me we have to go under doors and under the tables!””

Laughter, energy and play ensued as the 16 children started running underneath the tables, giggling and pretending that the ground was shaking. “Looking back, I feel like that was my first warning.”

At the church, the service is all in Nepalese. “I couldn’t understand anything, so I said, “Alright God! You better have something good for me to read because this is going to be a long service!”” Fluttering through the pages of her bible, she stops randomly on the book of Revelation. “I started reading about an Earthquake, and then I stopped. I remember putting my finger down and thinking,” she pauses. “And then I was thrown across the room.” Rumble. Crash. Rattle. Shatter. “That’s how it started.”

Billie’s bubbly expression suddenly turns very serious as she describes their first night spent in a field, away from the crumbling buildings and the shattering glass. “I didn’t shut my eyes once that night. I had a beautiful four year old boy sleeping soundly in my arms who called me mama. He was like a grown up in this tiny body. He didn’t speak much but looking into his eyes was like seeing through a window to his mind. At such a young age to be without parents or family, having witnessed such horrible things to me is just unthinkable. Each time the aftershocks would hit during the night the children would jump up and look at me with their big beautiful brown eyes. Each time I would reassure them that everything was okay.”

I ask her to describe the distinct point at which she realised the sheer magnitude of this natural disaster. “It wasn’t until the third day. I was able to charge my phone for the first time in days. A news reporter called and she was just saying all this stuff, like, “Do you want to give a message to your family? They don’t think you’re alive.” I looked around and outside the window, and I actually took in all the bodies. All the broken buildings. There were trucks of people pulling bodies out. That’s where I realised: I’m actually going through this.”

“And that was the first time I cried. We couldn’t sleep in the field any longer because it was storming outside. There was hail, thunder, lightning, all these crazy stray dogs.  We had to sleep in a building which was one of the most unsafe places you could be.”

The long, sleepless night crawled slowly into the morning, and by 7am a trusted older couple had come to take care of the kids. Billie speaks with conviction when she says it was no coincidence that someone came to take her to the Australian Embassy later that morning.

“There’s no way I would have gone [if the kids weren’t safe]. I wouldn’t have even been able to be dragged!”

With the return to normal life comes challenges in the mundane. “Every time I had a shower I cried. I used to wash in this little bucket. I barely fit in it and it was covered in paint. As much as it sounds crazy I kind of miss it. Not being around people who truly appreciate everything, that was one of the toughest things. It was just really difficult.”

Now over a year later Billie still has a Nepal-shaped hole in her heart, and every intention of going back.  

Picnics and Ball Gowns

They say Tasmania’s the kind of place where you can dream it and it’ll happen. You want to grow peaches and start a little white café that sells flowers and woollen socks on the side? Why not.

But what is it about this state that allows so many creative businesses to flourish? Is it the creative flow that springs so naturally from the stroke of nature’s brushes, or the general willingness of Tasmanians to collaborate, support and encourage one another? I chatted with two blogger-turned-cookbook authors, one who made the move from Hobart to Sydney, and one who did the opposite. They both shared with me the secrets of Tasmania’s creative success, and how we can see this continue to thrive.   

As a child, Sarah Glover dreamt of picnics and ball gowns: an elaborate set up of apple tart, quail, bellinis, flowers and rugs; all nestled in the wilderness under the sun’s golden glow. She dreamt of all the different ways she could combine laughter and friends and food: cooking pizzas by the sea, hosting dinner parties in a field, frying breakfasts beside a river.

Image by Luisa Brimble

Nine years after stuffing her teeny yellow beetle with 21 years worth of belongings and trading her Tasmanian home for the big smoke, Sarah’s ‘dream it and it’ll happen’ outlook is as strong as ever. And now, her picture perfect ideas are a daily reality. These days you can find her cooking, creating, and loving people through food as she collects stunning pictures, delicious recipes and epic adventure stories for her cookbook in the making: Wild.

“My lifestyle is very outdoors – I love surfing and cooking and fire so that kind of just all mashed into what the book is now. Rather than being a stay at home, cook it indoors sort of thing it’s all based in the outdoors… it’s about packing a picnic, getting on the road and enjoying the land.”

But if the outdoors are such a strong component of the book, why live in Sydney?

“I’m kind of a fast-paced person. I love to use my hands and be creative but I also like a quick turnaround on a project, so it was a natural fit”

Sarah also pins it down to the community she found when she ventured north, who were all completely welcoming and supportive of her. “They were really embracive of what I was doing and where I’ve come from… Tasmania’s a bit of a hot spot at the moment.” Alongside this, the connection she made with her photographer Luisa Brimble has proven to be invaluable. “We got to know each other and decided we wanted to write a book. She said to me, ‘What would you want to write if you could do anything?’” And so the picnics and ball gowns began.

As a Tassie girl who grew up surfing the turquoise waves and jumping off seaside rocks with her seven brothers and sisters, the contrasting chaos and buzz of Sydney has opened her eyes to a lack of appreciation for the simple things. Something that was instilled in her through her Tasmanian roots. Something she is now hoping to bring to the big city.

“I guess living in a bigger city you start to realise how people get so consumed with superficial things.” Work. Money. Drinking. Recovering. Repeat.

“It opened my eyes for the need to inspire people to get outside; to escape. Life isn’t all about working and money and stuff like that. We need to enjoy the land and creation.” Sarah says the biggest thing she misses about Tasmania is time. With the wilderness and an array of local produce right at her feet, everything she now uses to draw inspiration from was once far more accessible to her. “Being in Sydney you lack that. You don’t have as much space and it’s expensive. But I don’t think I’d be writing this book or appreciate what I had if I didn’t move to a bigger city.”

From the beginning, Sarah’s food journey has blossomed organically. In a city where the world of entrepreneurship is crowded and competitive, it’s her genuine love of food, her unique style, and her desire to bring people together that makes her sparkle amongst the rest. Sarah’s success comes from staying true to who she is. She is unique because her ultimate goal is simply to bring people together through outdoor adventures and meals around campfires.

“You’ll find that the competitiveness will come when you step out and do things.” Sarah says, acknowledging Australia’s tendency towards ‘tall poppy syndrome’ – “People get jealous pretty easily and want to chop others down, but for me it comes back to authenticity. If you’re doing something that’s authentic to you and it’s original, then the competitiveness isn’t there. What I’m doing… it’s sort of different to what’s in the marketplace. There’s a niche and a need for it. I love to influence people with what I’m passionate about, and if it takes off it takes off!”

There is a beautiful image of Sarah with her feet propped up in a bathtub which is situated in the middle of an open paddock, the sun rising behind her. It’s the perfect picture of her underlying philosophy, which is deeply rooted in a childhood dream. “I saw an episode of McLeod’s Daughters and they had a bath in the middle of an open field. Since then it’s been a dream of mine to do this.”

“A quick 15-minute meal in front of the TV isn’t really my thing.” Cooking beautiful food without rhyme or reason, bringing people together, getting people outside, talking and having conversation. That’s Sarah’s thing. 

Michelle Crawford’s version of picnics and ball gowns is slightly different. Before making the move from Sydney to Tasmania she dreamt of a country house and chickens. She dreamt of wandering through a veggie patch in red gumboots with children by her side, spending her days cooking, creating and writing. The story of her transition from managing glamorous balls at the Opera House to living the simple life in Tasmania is at the very core of her memoir and cookbook, A Table in the Orchard.

Now strolling through her garden with her little four legged friend Patch strutting along beside her, Michelle describes the move as nothing but pleasant. “When I was writing the book the publisher kept trying to drag some sort of shock or surprise out of me and I’d say, ‘no, it was really easy!’ I guess the most surprising thing was just how welcoming and friendly everyone was, and willing to share advice and produce and recipes. And Tasmania’s so inspiring. You just can’t help but be inspired by the landscape and the produce, so it’s really easy to write beautifully and photograph things really beautifully. You don’t get that so much in Sydney.”

The vibrant produce, the sweeping landscape, and the colourful seasons of our state might have taken Michelle’s cooking to a whole new level, but it all started with the humblest of beginnings. “It’s so cliché and everyone says it, but I actually did love watching my grandmother cook! The Women’s Weekly cookbooks were my favourite books, and I just loved reading those and seeing what cakes I could come up with.” Though the idea of a career in food had always been appealing, it wasn’t until Michelle had her first child Elsa that she really paused to think about what she wanted from life. “That was when my husband and I decided to move down here, we thought Tasmania would be a great place to pursue the life we wanted.”

Now, Michelle’s lovely Tasmanian home is the perfect match for her underpinning philosophy:  “My number one rule, is that there’s no point in doing anything unless it’s going to taste delicious.” It sounds simple but in the age of raw cheesecakes, vegan cookies and two-ingredient ice cream, the deliciousness of food is getting lost through our obsession with expensive and often tasteless ingredients.

Image taken from Michelle Crawford

As Michelle describes her ideal kind of cake for this time of year, her inspiration flows from the seasons. “I’m just loving hazelnuts at the moment, so I’d probably do some sort of hazelnut cake with browned butter, and… there’s not much fruit around at the moment so I’d keep it pretty sweet with maybe some salted caramel over the top… ooh but then rhubarb’s coming in so I might have to have some rhubarb in there somewhere!” She laughs, “I love making big stacks of cake which are impossible to cut but look amazing, so a big layered cake with those kinds of flavours!”

Very similarly, Sarah’s perfect cake is Spring-you-can-eat. “I’d make something with florals in it given that it’s Spring and it’s warm! I’m quite driven by my environment, so something with berries and flowers, maybe a white chocolate butter cake with smashed berry coulis through the middle. Then a butter icing with lots of flowers on top… general Sarah style!”

Image by Michelle Crawford

But it seems Sarah and Michelle have more in common than just their inspiration for cooking, or their mutual love of campfires and Land Rovers. It was Michelle’s love for bringing people together through food and her down-to-earth stories about family adventures and catching chickens in her backyard that attracted publishers to her blog. “They said they loved the way it made them feel. There they were sitting at their city desks living this really hectic life, and my blog gave them time to slow down, take a deep breath, and read about this woman living in the countryside. They said to me, ‘We want to take that feeling and turn it into a book.’”

Michelle continues to write recipes and stories that are inspiring people everywhere to stop and enjoy their surroundings. And to anyone contemplating a shift to Tasmania, Michelle simply encourages them to do it. “We moved here with no plan, no job, no house, no idea. We were really lucky that it all fell into place.” It didn’t take Michelle long to realise that there’s something very special and unique about this state. “Creative business-wise, you’ll do really well. We’ve only been here for 13 years but it’s amazing how infectious that sense of state pride is… we just sort of burst into tears every time someone makes it! But you know, Tasmania really does pack above its weight. It’s such a small population but when you think of all the amazing things it does, there’s good reason for us to be proud.”

In a country where speed and convenience are rapidly consuming our dinner table laughter and conversations, Michelle and Sarah remind us that there are times where we simply need dream up something good and somehow make it happen. We don’t all need to become food bloggers or authors or creative business owners, but maybe it’s time we stopped to appreciate the simple things. Whether this is baking a delicious loaf of bread, making hot chocolate by the sea, or having a picnic in ball gowns – we’re lucky Tasmania’s the kind of place where you can dream it, and it’ll happen.

Image by Luisa Brimble

A Bruny Island Adventure

Remember when you read your favourite book, or watched your favourite movie for the first time? Remember how it captured you, entertained you, had you hooked and left you in awe? And you got to the end and thought, "How have I lived my entire life without having come across this? How have I missed out all this time?"

Those were the exact thoughts I had when I visited Bruny Island. 

I moved to Tasmania with my family seven years ago. Minus a stunning family trip to Cradle Mountain, our first few years were chock-a-block full of the craziness of settling in and finding our feet in this beautiful place, and not much else. People told me about Bruny Island and I always noted it as one of my 'must-see' places, but I'd never made the venture over. 

Finally, after seven years a Tasmanian, I am proud to say I've now visited this magical island three times in just a few months. And it has. my. heart. 

*   *   *

On my third and most recent trip over, Mum and I started the day picking grapes at Bruny Island Premium Wines with the local community for their annual picking day. It was so lovely to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine picking grapes and getting to know some of the locals. Afterwards, the owners of the winery put on an absolute feast and we all enjoyed some house made vino alongside a beautiful array of spit roast meats, salads and breads. 

The next day we packed up our little cottage and set off for the ferry, but not before a pit stop at Bruny Island Cheese Co. 

This place could not have a more relaxed atmosphere if it tried. The serenity that comes with sitting amongst the trees on a secluded wooden deck with wooden boxes for tables and chairs is worth every mile it takes to get down there. To the right there were loaves of bread being shovelled out of a wood fire oven, behind us was the cheese house itself where you could learn everything there is to know about their outstanding cheese and peruse their gorgeous range of Tasmanian produce, and everywhere else there were sky-high trees. I even spied a little bird's nest out the corner of my little eye. 

Our little venture was short but definitely sweet, and we will definitely be back as soon as our busy lives allow. Because, unlike your favourite book or movie, returning to this place never gets old. 

*   *   *