Fed Up with Canberra’s sexist chefs, Lucy Ridge journeys to a new food culture

Posted on 9 March, 2026

Lucy Ridge is a Canberra girl, turned chef, turned kitchen rebel, turned food writer, whose new book Fed Up will change the way you view the ingredients on your plate.

Part memoir, part love letter to small scale producers and part homage to women working across Australia’s food landscape, Fed Up is, more than anything, a beautiful read.

Lucy Ridge

Rejecting the misogyny she almost unfailingly encountered across various well-known Canberra kitchens she worked in as a young chef, Lucy embarked in 2021 on a food journey around Australia which would nourish her soul.

She had a simple idea. She wanted to learn the wisdom of female food producers who pursued ethical, sustainable food production practices and who cared for Country. Sending out random emails late at night, Lucy offered herself as free labour in exchange for food, board, and a chance to work side by side with some incredible women. 

Somewhat surprised to receive a diverse array of offers from one end of Australia to the other, Lucy packed her trusty Subaru and headed off – open to adventure.

From wild harvesting bush foods with an Indigenous Elder in Broome, cheese-making in country New South Wales and butchering pasture-raised pigs in Victoria, to stomping grapes in Tasmania, shucking oysters near Jervis Bay and distilling gin in the heart of Darwin, Lucy experienced tastes and characters she has immortalised in her book.

Mayi Harvests, Djugun Country, Broome, WA

Keeping a diary of her experiences and emotions, Lucy also battled lockdowns, depression and a dwindling bank balance to complete placements all across Australia. She learned far more than the intricacies of creating boutique food and alcohol, she learned the machinations of the food supply chain, the wild creativity and energy of women forging their own path, and along the way, she fell back in love with cooking.

Fed Up provides a poetic mix of the realities of being a primary producer and a broader consideration of agroecology, and food sovereignty.

For instance, Lucy records her thought-processes while making cheese at Second Mouse Cheese Co in Orange when one must wait and watch for vital alchemy between rennet and milk.

“This process leaves you with a lot of thinking time. I’d love to say I worked through some of my existential angst, but it was more like: This is boring; Do I need to pee? Don’t think about peeing; Fuck me, this is taking forever; Did I even add the rennet? Have I fucked up a whole batch …? My brain took me on a merry-go-round of mundanity before finally – up to 21 minutes later – I spotted the subtle change and relief took over from second-guessing. It’s important to have an accurate flocculation time…”

Stargazer Wines & Pressing Matters, Palawa Country, Coal River Valley, Tasmania

She also articulates her grief at the necessary but almost always overlooked death of livestock in order to feed the community and mourns the loss of baby piglets crushed by their mum one morning – a disappointing event for farmers but one which shocks the city girl.

“I fretted that in my excitement over seeing the newborn piglets I had disturbed Missy. Did she back herself into a corner to avoid the intrusion of an overenthusiastic intern? I felt guilty that we had been working so close by, unaware that there was a problem. Could we have intervened earlier? It was hard to shake the knot in my belly.”

She also considers the wider context of food consumption across Australia.

“The pandemic exposed stark gaps and weaknesses in the food system. While my time in the kitchen had given me an insight into the problems of the hospitality industry, the impacts of COVID-19 opened my eyes to the lack of resilience in the industrial system and the broken links in our supply chain. But on the weekend, the farmers’ market stalls still had an abundance of produce. Did the small, local market have a better business model than the supermarket? I started researching the agriculture industry and the state of the Australian food system and realised that to understand where we were now, I needed to go back a lot further.”

Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths, Dja Dja Warrung Country, Eganstown, Victoria

When she began her odyssey, Lucy had only half-formed plans for a book.

“I had always hoped that this journey of internships would be a way to work on my writing skills. I was thinking blogs, maybe an article and I certainly hoped that I could write a book about it, but it didn’t feel like a reality at the beginning! 

“I did keep a diary during each internship to record what I was doing, and I also went back and interviewed everyone when I was writing their chapters which was helpful for technical details but also to get their broader reflections,” she says.

“The process of writing the book was tough: it’s a lot of work, and I’d never attempted anything close to the scale of a book before. It was a real learning curve to go from short articles to a long form project. People have asked if I’d write another book: on the one hand it was really hard to do, but on the other I think I’d be much better at it the second time around!

“Emotionally it was quite intense to be reflecting so honestly on my journey. I thought a lot about how much to share, particularly around family, relationships and mental health. I think overall it has been quite cathartic to be able to put it all down on paper. I know myself a lot better now.”

Described by food-writing doyenne Stephanie Alexander as a book which will allow the reader to “come away with new understanding of process and respect for these farmers and growers who demonstrate care for country at the same time as following their passions,” Fed Up takes readers from paddock to plate, exploring the role of women in food production and prompting us to think more deeply about the people responsible for our dinner.

Fed Up  can be purchased from Monash University Publishing or any good bookshop.