HELEN VLAHAKIS

Music by Alexandre Bateiras - Cano da Ribeira.

HELEN VLAHAKIS

Farmer, Cook & Café Owner

Robertson, Australia

Helen is a hero of mine and a dear friend who I don’t see often enough anymore; or since I went to film school and she bought an old café in Robertson, a charming village of the Southern Highlands, one hour forty minutes’ drive south of Sydney. We met in 2016 on a photography workshop organised by Annabelle Hickson in the Dumaresq Valley. It was my very first step into learning photography and the theme of my first Instagram video. My goal being, at the time, to take better photos for my French online textile magazine which I published weekly and sent to 235K readers. Read More

Photos I took over the years…

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Helen’s goal was to improve her food photography and styling to take her cooking blog and Instagram page to another level, which she immediately did after leaving the shearing quarters we were staying at. There was something that attracted me to Helen as soon as I met her. The evocation of food immediately lit up her face, and like me, she could talk about cooking and different cuisines forever.

When I met Helen, she was a lawyer owning a law firm with her husband George in Sydney. They had bought a house in the Southern Highlands in Bundanoon and were looking for a larger acreage to start a mini farm. And they found one in dreamy Kangaloon. Imagine windy roads climbing hills, walled by trees like in the Disney’s Snow White, covered in moss and dangling lichen. There is a gate, and after a collection of Japanese acer trees, the picture prefect cottage with a spectacular garden and rolling slopes of grass for cattle or goats. I came to visit not long after they purchased it. I was sensing that Helen was going to have her heart torn between her Sydney life and her love of the country. She was dreaming of “paddock to plate” cooking classes and retreats, guest chefs flaming meat on the farm, and long table dinners by candle light.

Fast forward a little, Helen quit her job, moved in the cottage with her four children and all the dreams listed above happened. And it grew, and it grew! From a tiny veggie patch and a few goats, the farm welcomed Angus cattle and the fruits and vegetable production exploded. From feeding groups of happy few - guests and students - Helen is now catering for a whole town in her Old Robertson Cheese Factory café. She’s making locals and passers-by happy and content with a delicious country cuisine she inherited from her yiayia and the women of her family. Using only local ingredients from her farm and its neighbours, she’s going back to a very traditional way to provide for her community.

I’m very happy that she accepted to be part of my 30 people who are making the world more beautiful. Thank you Helen! I loved to learn more about you in the interview below.

Connect with Helen and Mumma’s Country Kitchen

@mummascountrykitchen | mummascountrykitchen.com.au

INTERVIEW

Mumma's Country Kitchen came about by trying to encompass the essence of what I am about at my core - I'm a mum of four gorgeous kids, I adore living in the country where life is still busy however feels more "real" in its day to day madness, and the "Kitchen" comes from my kitchen being at the core of so many things - family, good health, laughter, tears, advice, plus of course enjoying and creating beautiful meals that may not always be pretty, but always full of heart!
Born in Sydney and live in the Southern Highlands
Speak English at home however also speak Greek.
I am a hands on parent plus I run a cafe and deli called "Mumma's Country Kitchen" in a beautiful historic cheese factory in Robertson in the Southern Highlands. We are crazy foodies, obsessed with serving up good food, and sharing the most amazing produce whether that be our own grass fed and finished "Headwater" beef, a tin of Spanish anchovies or cheese glorious cheese!
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be the owner of cafe and continental deli anywhere let alone the Southern Highlands! I always thought I wanted to be a lawyer, worked in that field for years and years, and then organically moved to being a mummy blogger, cooking class teacher (on our own farm focussing on the paddock to plate philosophy), and then moving into being where I am today.
Career wise - without a doubt, biting a bullet and purchasing a run down cafe/deli with no previous hospitality or retail experience (I doubt my teen years in Sussan [clothing store] counts here!).
Personally - bringing four kids into the world and being a hands on parent the whole way!
Tending to my veggie patch! The daily visit to the garden gives me a sense of peace and the satisfaction of growing food to cook for loved ones is simply gold! The other thing I find almost meditative is making bread. The motion of kneading dough for bread into a smooth ball always make me lose all sense of time and place and replaces feelings of anxiety with an innate sense of achievement.
My first big break was an Instagram post that went viral! It was a picture of a Tim Tam cake, layers and all, that was viewed and regrammed for many weeks following the post. The exposure it gave me was simply fantastic as it was at the start of my blogging journey and it was just the encouragement I needed at the time to keep travelling in that direction. My other big break was presenting a cooking show for Superbarn supermarkets - it was the craziest few days of filming with an incredible team and the exposure from it was enormous - so grateful to Theo from Superbarn for such an opportunity.
Absolutely, without a doubt, losing one of my best friends, and the chef in my cafe, in an unexpected and tragic car accident at the start of this year. Losing a key person in my business, trying to keep the doors open, keeping the other staff motivated while understanding their need to grieve, keeping a hold on my own grief when everyone just wanted to talk about what happened without knowing how personally invested I was, all the while trying to generally navigate a small business in ridiculously tough times, it was a huge hurdle to overcome.
So - it's a constant struggle not to use it in every sentence of any writing I do.
Honesty, loyalty and kindness.
My grandmother's rolling pin. It is simply part of an old broom. However, to this day, I use it when I'm making an old school spanakopita and I think about her as I prepare the dish. She looked after my cousins, brother and I while our parents worked when we were little. She made cooking the daily dinner into a game to try and make us behave. (“try” is the key word here - gee, we were naughty!)
It's really hard to go past a traditional spanakopita made with olive oil pastry...and if it's made with spinach and herbs from the patch, along with eggs from our chickens, well that to me is my ultimate dish.
I can't seem to get more than 10 pages into a book without falling asleep however I already have two booked lined up for the upcoming holidays - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and the Matthew Perry autobiography Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
Rerun of the Friends series...yep, all ten seasons!
I can't even remember the last time I went to the movies - eek!
Still can't get past the 90's neo soul - I'm talking Maxwell, Sade - bliss!
My maternal yiayia (grandmother). Everything she cooked was delicious, seasonal, well seasoned, and completely made with heart.
I adore living in the Southern Highlands however it has always been a dream to live overseas for a couple of years - somewhere like New York or alternatively in a village in rural France or Italy.
I'm still formulating it so watch this space!