#8 Pat O'Neil – Melbourne, Australia

Pat’s a brave and thorough cook never afraid to wrangle a goose (yep) for the sake of a good meal. He’s a stickler for following an exact recipe and serving portions that satisfy.

During COVID-19 lockdowns, Pat relocated to the hills of Selby to isolate with the in-laws. He’s had to reign in his market shopping and rethink meal planning and rationing, just like the rest of us.

With a 13-month-old in tow, I wanted to know what he was dishing up for his little one and whether his kitchen ambitions were getting dialled down, now a demanding toddler was sitting front-row.

Name: Patrick O’Neill
Occupation: Graphic designer & photographer turned Produce delivery driver
Location: Brunswick, Melbourne/Selby, Melbourne 
Family members: Pat, Taryn, Louis (13 months)

We’re a tightly bound trio that values food, fresh air, silliness, and our daily rituals. Since COVID-19 we’ve been less project-focused, but we miss the regular architecture to our weeks – things like playing basketball, visiting the park and collecting the groceries on a leisurely 10-stop shop.  

Louis is keeping us grounded. He’s too young to know what’s going on, but we’ll have some good stories for him in the future, like why he didn’t have a 1st birthday party. 

At the moment we’re living with Taryn’s parents so there are many hands around to occupy Louis. He’s started walking since lockdown happened, moving at a million miles a minute. We’re fortunate enough to be in the position to still be bringing in an income and being able to be at home with our child.

I miss being at home, at our house. We’d always planned to be in Selby around this time due to our house renovations, but we’ve come early to isolate, help Taryn’s parents and get their help with Louis while we’re working.

I’m now working at my cousin’s family butcher, Hagen’s Organics, delivering meat and fresh produce, which gives me time to think up cost-effective, delicious family meals. I then take that idea, prepare the food, document it in a lo-fi way and get it out there on their social channels.  

Like everyone else, I’m baking. My father in-law, Vagn, has become obsessed with baking and is pulling out some delicious bagels. I recently went to six different supermarkets to find yeast for my father-in-law so I was pretty stoked to come home with some after that ordeal. We’ve now both got our sourdough starters on the go as yeast is hard to come by. We’ll see how that goes.

We haven’t really had problems sourcing things in lockdown. Taryn’s mum, Kerrie, is an avid gardener so we’re really enjoying living with her and picking herbs from the garden. We’re trying to go out less and use more of what we already have on hand. Because we’re living in a different area we’re missing our rituals, like buying bread from Ovens Street Bakery on a Saturday morning. We also miss Medditeranean Wholesalers and I miss shopping from meal-to-meal, which is how we generally go about things.  

In isolation I still cook most of the family meals and we share the load when it comes to cooking for Louis. We’re getting vegetable boxes delivered so cooking big wholesome soups with kale, beans and vegetables or a roasted pumpkin soup helps us get through that. Taryn’s family is Danish, so we also enjoy Danish meals regularly with her parents – particularly stegt flæsk (fried pork belly) with potatoes and parsley sauce. And as I said before, we’re eating a lot of bread – a lot. It’s something that happened when we were in a different type of lockdown as well: when Louis was a newborn. I’m sure we’ll get sick of it soon. 

I cook a lot ­– and sometimes extravagantly – but it’s always homely. My cooking habits haven’t changed too much since becoming a dad. Taryn and I are always thinking about our next meal and we’re always thinking of what Louis can eat and if we can combine the two.

Like many people around my age, I started cooking for myself around the time of Naked Chef-era Jamie Oliver. I used to cook a lot of his food, and still do occasionally. It was always approachable, cost effective and doable post-work without any preparation. I like to buy as I go and not plan too far ahead. 

I have an unashamedly huge collection of cookbooks. I love to dive into those and find inspiration. If I cook something for somebody that blows them away and they ask what my secret is, I always say “I stuck to a professional’s recipe, that’s it”. I try to keep things seasonal and cook light in summer and hearty in winter and I love the odd challenge, like 24-hour pho or a whole goose. I have been told I make the world’s best roast potatoes. 

We always have things in the pantry that will elevate a meal. Anchovies, tahini, fresh herbs. I wish we grew the herbs but we’re both pretty hopeless when it comes to this, plus we have possums that come down in the night and devour them. I’m also obsessed with always having a large block of parmiggiano-reggiano and pecorino romano in the fridge. We love carbonara so these are essential items.

We stick to a mostly vegetarian diet from Monday to Friday. Louis needs lots of iron so he eats plenty of organic meat. One of our go-tos for him is a beef mince and chicken liver rissoles that he loves to eat on their own but we also break them up in a tomato sugo with some chickpea pasta. We are also trying to expose Louis to as many veggies in their natural form as possible rather than hiding them in his foods. We want him to like vegetables rather than trick him into eating them.

My first real food memory came from a family holiday in Malaysia in the late 80s. I had nasi lemak with fried chicken and it blew my mind! I went from being a skinny child to a chubby one very quickly. It triggered my interest in food and I was obsessed from then on. 

I grew up in Mentone which had a large Turkish community at the time. Turkish was my absolute favourite. My brother and I would fight over the amount of iskander kebap that we got and my parents pretty much had to weigh it to stop fights. 

My dad was a keen fisherman and I was often out in the boat with him. We were always after King George Whiting, which is the most delicious fish. We would dust the fillets in seasoned flour and pan fry and serve with lemon juice. Yum.  

Louis is only 13 months old, so his food journey is just beginning. He eats a lot and doesn’t really have anything he won’t eat at the moment, but we know this can change overnight. We just recently got him a toddler tower so he can join me in the kitchen and watch what’s going on, though he gets impatient and wants the food NOW. I plan to get him involved in the meal cooking as early as possible. In terms of passing on traditions to Louis, it will mostly be passing on our love for food from all over the world. 

Time-saving tips or food hacks:
I generally cook up a large ragu or bolognaise and keep a few serves stowed away in the freezer for the evenings when I can’t be bothered cooking. We always cook a batch for Louis, minus the salt, and freeze serves for him in a large ice cube tray so we can just pop them out in to a pot and have his dinner on the table in 10 minutes. I always like to plan ahead with meals so we can use the same produce and not waste anything. If I cook us a lamb shoulder I’ll turn the leftovers in to a sherpherd’s pie.

Favourite local kid-friendly restaurants:
We miss our Friday night pizza ritual that we generally get from Primo in Westgarth. It’s really the only takeaway we get. We don’t get much of a chance to eat out, but we’ll sometimes head to Juanita Peaches for a delicious family meal. 

Mushroom Frittata with stuff from the fridge

We like making a simple veggie and egg fritatta because it’s fast, nutritious, delicious and easy for Louis to feed himself.

 A cup of chopped mushrooms
4 eggs
1 clove of garlic
Fresh thyme
Grated parmesan cheese
Stuff from the fridge: we used some leftover sweet potato from last night’s dinner, frozen peas and fetta cheese.

Pre-heat your oven to 180c. 

In a small non-stick pan with an oven-safe handle, sauté the chopped mushrooms with a smashed garlic clove in some olive oil until nice and golden, but not dry. Remove the garlic clove and season with plenty of pepper and some salt depending on your child’s age. Just a pinch J

Beat the eggs and mix in some cheese, I put in a little parmesan. Pour over the mushrooms and mix to combine. Quickly add in the stuff from the fridge and stir again. Let it sit on the stove until you can see the edges start to get crispy and come away from the pan. Pop in the oven for around 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before turning out on to a plate. We served this with some boiled broccoli and some leftover sugo from the previous night’s dinner. This will do two generous serves. Enjoy!