WoW Bites: ‘I always knew I wanted to cook for people...I just wasn’t sure how’

Corrinne Austin loves to cook for people.

Hailing from South Africa, Corrinne now calls Blarney home, and it is from here that she hosts cookery classes and offers private cheffing experiences through her business, Corrinne’s Kitchen.

A self-taught cook with a degree in fine art, food was the one thing that always brought her joy: learning from other chefs, as well as exploring her own culinary curiosity.

In Ireland, there is a whole new lexicon of food and ingredients Corrinne has learned to navigate and meld with food memories of her South African homeland. In the process, she has found a new community through the food she cooks and the classes she teaches.

“I was born in Cape Town but spent most of my life in a coastal town called Ballito in KwaZulu-Natal province, north of Durban on the north coast.

“South Africa is a very big country,” says Corrinne – and she’s right, I checked. To drive from Cape Town to Ballito is a staggering 1,675 km, 18.5-hour drive!

“I’ve been living in Ireland for six-and-a-half years, and since I’ve been here, I’ve travelled lots around Europe – London was a real eye-opener, France as well. Just travelling while I have the opportunity to be here is great, and it really broadens the mind.”

Corrinne’s wonderment reminds me just how often we take for granted the diversity of countries, cultures and foods that are within a short one- or two-hour flight from here – even as we ourselves are on Europe’s outer edge.

Back in Ballito, Corrinne grew up with the vast Indian Ocean on her doorstep, and kilometres of golden sandy beaches popular with surfers.

“It was a small town surrounded by sugar cane, lots of farming, and a popular surfing town. A lot of holiday homes sprung up, and by the time I left in 2018, it had grown into a huge town.”

Growing up in South Africa, Corrinne experienced the “melting pot of cultures” that are often unique there, with people from other countries creating their own style specific to South Africa.

“You won’t get the same type of curry in Durban, for example, that you would in the south of India; they’re really specific with their styles,” explains Corrinne.

“There’s about nine different African languages and cultures, it’s so diverse. There’s English and Afrikaans; down in the Cape, Dutch settlers brough in their influence; there’s Indian, too. So, you have an incredible melting pot of different cultures and cuisines. There’s definitely an influence from my South African heritage when I write my menus.”

I show my ignorance about this interesting-sounding diverse culinary universe when I say all I really know about South African food is the enduring love of the braai.

“That is pretty universal across all the different cultures there,” says Corrinne, “but the word braai just doesn’t sound right to me anymore because everyone here says barbecue!”

But despite growing up surrounded by sugar cane, farmlands, an ocean full of incredible fish and seafood, and the ever-present braai, a career in food came much later in Corrinne’s life.

“From a really young age, I’d get up before anyone else and make a breakfast or just cook something by myself. Food was always very important to me, and a lot of my early memories always come back to food,” says Corrinne.

“I studied a degree in fine art, so I’ve always been creative, and then I started entering cooking competitions and won a few of those.

“When I was 30 years old, I watched the movie Julie & Julia,” she says.

Julia & Julia follows a young woman who blogs about her attempts to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s seminal cookery book, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.

“It was so inspiring, and I started a blog of my own recipes and food photos,” says Corrinne. “I’m quite embarrassed now when I go back and look at the very early ones, but it was great and, I guess, a creative outlet for me.”

This was the moment when things changed for Corrinne, and a chance opportunity with a good friend was the genesis for a foray into pop-up restaurants.

“I met a very good friend, who was a chef, and we started a pop-up restaurant together in our town,” says Corrinne.

“Nothing like that had happened in South Africa yet, or at least not in the province that we were in; it was a first. We’d choose a different charity to promote each time, promote local musicians, and organise these pop-ups in a place we could hire out. We just co-operated together: we promote them, they promoted us, and it was quite community oriented.

“I really enjoyed the experience. I was mostly running the front of house, but I learned so much from my chef-friend, and other chefs along the way as well. I suppose I am self-taught, but I have learned so much from other chefs.

“I always knew I wanted to cook and to cook for people, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to do that or what it was going to look like. When we moved to Ireland, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do here,” says Corrinne.

“I did look at studying culinary arts, but I already knew how to do many of the things that were on the curriculum - the skills they were going to teach me, I already had. So, I thought, I’m just going to start my business. I registered with the HSE in 2019, and my business, Corrinne’s Kitchen, has been growing since then.”

Corrinne began with a service that offered heat-and-eat homecooked vegetarian dishes for collection from her home, but when covid hit, she re-registered as an artisan food producer and began selling through Neighbourfood.

“That did really well. I made pickles, relishes and jam. I made all my own pastry and fillings – everything from scratch, so I also made a lot of South African savoury tarts, vegetarian pies and South-African Indian Samosas.”

After restrictions lifted, Corrinne noticed an uptick in enquiries for cooking for people in their own homes.

“That was when I began private cheffing and found that was what I really loved to do,” says Corrinne, “and when I started, it was like I couldn’t stop!

“A lot of clients come to me by word of mouth, and it has just grown and grown. I do everything myself, and it’s a very hands-on service.

“I like to get an idea of what a client likes or doesn’t like before we settle on a menu.

“I do change my menu often because I like to keep things fresh, but there are some staple dishes that I always like to have on the menu.”

Corrinne is often called in to cater for the big milestone family events, such as christening, communions, significant birthdays and anniversaries.

Taking care of everything to do with the food, from the prep to cooking, serving and clear up, means families can focus on enjoying the celebration and making memories.

“Food, family, friends, and gathering, I think, is very important, and food and memory are very closely related. If I can help people enjoy their time together through the food they are eating at an event, that’ll be something even more special they can remember.”

Every couple of months, Corrinne also hosts cookery classes which take place at her home in Blarney.

“I choose a different theme every time because I have quite a few regulars that come back. It’s very social, and I like to make people feel relaxed.

“I want people to sit back and enjoy the food, have a welcome drink, and just meet new people and learn to cook.

“I set up different food stations and group different people together to work at each food station. It breaks the ice, and people can feel at ease so they can get involved, which is so important.

“I’m really passionate about cooking, so for the cooking classes I try to help other people to find that passion too.”

This year, Corrinne is also trying something different with her classes, by bringing in other Cork-based foodies to share their knowledge of a particular cuisine.

“I knew May [Kong of Ballincollig-based SensAsian grocery and deli], so I thought, why don’t we try doing something together, and that’s where the idea for an Asian cooking course came from.”

Tickets sold out in quick order, but there are plans to do another event with May later in the year, as well as exploring the many diverse food cultures to be found in Cork.

“I’d like to collaborate with others who are professionals in their own particular cuisine to add a new dimension to the classes,” says Corrinne.

“I can cook Asian food, but I’m not a professional in it, which is why I wanted to partner with May.

“Cork is a very multi-national city and the food from all those different nations is fantastic, so I’d really like to feature it and expose people to something different.”

It’s true: food is a universal language we all understand.

“We can travel the world without ever leaving Cork when we seek out cuisines and food cultures different to our own.

“I’ve tried to encourage my children from a very early age to taste different foods, cook different things and be comfortable in the kitchen,” says Corinne.

“I think it’s important to know where our food comes from; and I think it’s important to be able to feed yourself, and to cook for your family and friends. Food brings people together.

“I have found that I love to cook for others and when you do something you love, you get that dopamine hit.

“We need to do things we love as well as things we don’t love, so for me cooking for people is what makes me feel I’m doing something right; that this is something good.

“That’s it really - I just want to cook good food for people.”

Keep up to date with upcoming cookery classes via Corrinne’s Kitchen Instagram: @corrinneskitchenireland.