Blogger, food photographer and cookbook author Skye Mcalpine reflects fondly on her early years in Broome.
MY COUNTRY CHILDHOOD — SKYE MCALPINE
A CHILDHOOD SPENT knocking around in Broome, on the north coast of WA, sounds like a dream, but for author and cook Skye Mcalpine it was reality — for at least half the year, anyway. Her somewhat unconventional childhood helped build the foundations for a life where freedom, friends and sharing food are paramount. The only daughter of Lord Alistair Mcalpine, a property developer and former treasurer of Britain’s Conservative Party during the Thatcher era, and Romilly Hobbs, a caterer and contributing editor to British Vogue, Skye spent her early years moving between homes in Australia and the English countryside. In 1990, the family moved to Venice following an IRA attack on their Hampshire home. Lord Mcalpine was fundamental to Broome’s development, building the famous Cable Beach Club, which opened in 1988. It transformed Broome from a remote pearling town into a popular tourist destination. “He was really passionate about Broome — he just wanted to make it a magical place,” explains Skye, 34, from the kitchen of her pink Venetian cottage as we chat on the phone. It’s a bad mobile connection between Sydney and Italy, but Skye’s laughter cuts through the crackles down the line. A fan of palm trees and frangipani, Lord Mcalpine spearheaded a planting program in the township. He also admired the local architecture, especially the houses with wooden lattice work and corrugated iron, and he restored buildings in this style and built new ones, maintaining the architectural quirks that make Broome so unique. The 1990 decision to move the family to Venice came quickly after their Hampshire home was bombed by the IRA. “They decided to get away from the madness for a year,” Skye says of her father’s decision to move following the attack, during which no one was injured. It is in Venice that she remains, with her Australian husband Anthony Santospirito, who now divides his week between working in the finance industry in London and their family’s home in Italy. The couple met in Skye’s first week at Oxford University, where she studied for a degree in classics. Anthony, a city boy from Sydney, struck up a conversation with Skye, who mentioned she’d just returned from a remote place she was sure he’d never have heard of — Broome. “He said, ‘I know Broome’ and I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘God, no-one knows Broome!’ And we just went from there.” Skye’s last visit to Broome was in 2004. “I try to get back but it’s such a long trip and it’s become harder to justify taking that much time off.” But she and Anthony are planning to return to Australia with their five-year-old son, Aeneas, later this year to launch her first book, A Table in Venice: Recipes From My Home, a celebration of Venetian home cooking. “I really miss that sense of freedom, the bliss of driving down on to the beach and there’s no-one for miles,” she adds. “I’m dying to go back. I absolutely love Broome.” > Visit Skye’s blog frommydiningtable.com or follow @skyemcalpine on Instagram. Turn to page 88 for an extract from A Table in Venice (Bloomsbury Publishing, $45).
THE FOOD WRITER TELLS ELIZA O’HARE ABOUT SWAPPING THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE FOR VENICE, VIA THE RED EARTH OF BROOME. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY ANTHONY SANTOSPIRITO
THE THING ABOUT growing up in many places is that it’s hard to figure out where ‘home’ is. I think the place that felt most like home was probably Venice, but Broome is a special place and I still get homesick for it now. I loved Broome. Our house was a series of pavilions with a rambling garden, and my bedroom was small with twin bunks and corrugated-iron walls. I would go to sleep running my fingers up and down those walls. We had a tree house that I wanted to be my bedroom — sadly it wasn’t. My friends and I would be outside most of the time, wearing no shoes, making mud pies in red pindan earth and sandcastles on the beach. Our kitchen was a big open room with lovely old-fashioned fans on the ceiling and tons of light. But what I remember most is that we had a big ice-cream maker and my mother would make amazing ice-cream that she served in tiny little cones — I would cover mine in Ice Magic. We were there six months of the year until I was about nine years old — it was such a magical place. We had lots of friends who would come and stay from Italy, the UK and Sydney. In Broome we always had big lunches and dinners at a table outside under the mango tree. Mum and Dad both loved food, cooking and laying the table, so it was very collaborative. It’s a lovely way to do it; it’s more fun if you’re all doing it together. My son, Aeneas, hasn’t been to Broome, but he’s five now so he’s starting to be at the age where the flights are doable. My mother used to do the flight with me three or four times a year — she was much more gung-ho! I want Aeneas to see Cable Beach and the red earth, and feel the salty hot air. What I miss most is the heat and the relaxed pace. And the mangoes! Broome people are different from everyone else in the world. You’ll find a nasty spider in your cupboard or a hideous snake in your laundry basket, and everyone is completely relaxed about it and knows what to do. Everything is on ‘Broome time’. The other half of our year was spent in Hampshire in the English countryside. We lived in a Queen Anne house that looked like a doll’s house; old and charming with a pretty garden and lots of green lawns. Very English. My room was at the top of the house in the attic, and I had a lovely big nursery with a rocking horse, a doll’s house and a really pretty four-poster bed — to me, it was a princess bed. We had two great danes called Jasmine and Jemima, and my mother had a little white fluffy dog called Giorgio that was a cross between a pekingese and a bichon frisé. We always had dogs and a rabbit called Barney, who I was very attached to. In Broome, we had dogs as well. My dog was a staffy called Stubby, but I really wanted a pet hamster. My father thought that was the most boring pet in the world, so he decided to give me two zebra from the Pearl Coast Zoo he founded in Broome. Sometimes, as a special treat, I was allowed to camp there. My parents were really interesting. We always had an open house, always had lots of people joining us for lunch or dinner... I was allowed to stay up and be a part of it. That’s a special part of my childhood. The move to Venice was the third part of my childhood. I arrived at the local school without one word of Italian and by the end of the school year I was completely fluent. It’s amazing how children can just learn a language like that. As I grew up living between multiple places, it feels normal that my husband comes out to Venice at weekends from his finance job in London. It’s easy to get from London to Venice; there’s something like 15 flights a day. It suits us... Meals are important to us. I think that’s a very Italian thing — school ends at 1pm and businesses close from one till four to encourage you to pause for meals. In my book, I wanted to show people what it’s like to live here. Venice has a country feel to it... Everyone knows everyone and you walk everywhere. There’s definitely ‘Venice time’ here as well! I can’t spend too much time in big cities — after a couple of weeks I need to get back to Venice. I need to slow down a little.