From Station Kitchens To Remote Classrooms, This 70-Year Celebration Cookbook Shares Real Outback Life, One Recipe At a Time
There’s cooking, and then there’s cooking when the nearest shop is hours away and Uber Eats is a mere figment of your imagination.
That’s the kind of life captured in Dust Off & Dish Up, the new outback cookbook from Broken Hill School of the Air, marking 70 years of keeping remote kids connected to education, and each other.
Not Your Average Cookbook
Pulled together by the school’s P&C, the book features more than 190 recipes from students, families, staff and past students. It builds on a strong legacy too. A previous edition, Boots Off Apron On, sold more than 5,500 copies and raised over $100,000 for the school in 2016.
This time around, three mums, Bessie, Sonja and Emma, headed up the project, bringing in former School of the Air mum Bree, who helped create the 2016 book.
“We wanted to pay homage to what made Boots Off Apron On such a success, beautiful photography, a modern aesthetic, stories of life in the bush alongside tried and true recipes, while also creating something that stood proudly on its own as a thoughtful, entertaining and curated celebration of our very special school.”
The Favourites Everyone Talks About
The result is a mix of meals that get made on repeat, along with the stories that come with them. Some recipes have been handed down through generations, others come straight from today’s busy station kitchens.
A few favourites are already standouts. “The Happy Wife Espresso Martini” is a favourite, sent in by a school dad with an incredibly entertaining poem to go with it! “Cooking Perfect Yabbies” is also a fun read that transports you straight into station life in remote Australia. The sausage casserole gets continual dinner requests, while The Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are so popular the mixture barely makes it to the oven. It’s also hard to go past the stunning sponge cake on the cover, which is a fan favourite.
School, But Not As You Know It
Beyond the food, this outback cookbook gives a glimpse of what life actually looks like for the kids behind it.
Broken Hill School of the Air runs like any other school in many ways. There’s a campus in Broken Hill, teachers based on site, and events like sports carnivals, swimming carnivals and school camps.
Day to day, though, it looks very different. Students learn from home, with lessons delivered online and daily interaction happening through a screen. Many families have set up dedicated classrooms on their properties, stocked with books, resources and whatever else they need to get through the school day.
Some families bring in governesses to help run lessons, while others manage it themselves alongside the demands of station life.
A couple of times each term, everyone comes together in Broken Hill for classroom days, excursions and camps, something that takes planning, travel and cost for families spread far and wide.
Right now, 129 students are part of the school, across New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, with some living up to eight hours from Broken Hill.
Why This Book Matters
The cookbook also weaves in stories from across that community, including a former student reflecting on life 60 years ago, and a current mum who has experienced it all, as a student, governess and now a parent.
Every copy sold feeds straight back into the P&C, funding books, resources, camps, excursions and school improvements.
And that support is incredibly important. Geographical isolation means these kids miss out on everyday things like weekend sport and regular time with friends, before often heading off to boarding school in their early teens.
This kind of funding helps close that gap, giving them more chances to learn, connect and build confidence along the way.
Get in Line for the Next Batch
Demand is hot! The first round of orders has already sold out, and now the team is taking pre-orders for the next print run, with delivery expected in June and July.
To purchase, head to dustoffdishup.com.au
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