The pyromaniac kid who made barbecue his life

As a child, chef Graeme Stockdale was embarrassed by the smell of sauerkraut and pickles that would trail him from his Polish and German grandparents' home. A transformative encounter with a barbecued duck in Singapore changed his life, though nothing would prepare him for two monumental floods in his adopted region of Lismore, NSW.

Graeme was only a boy when he was introduced to the power and ferocity of fire. 

As a nine-year-old living in Albany, Western Australia he lit a fire out of curiosity on a neighbour's property. 

It was the look on his mother's face that turned his experience from awesome into terrifying.

Graham grew up with the flavours of his grandparents' German and Polish ancestry, raised by a single mum, and experienced social isolation brought on by the judgement of kids at school.  

After the barbecued duck experience, his whole world became focused on food, and he eventually opened his own restaurant in Lismore, NSW.

Graeme survived two major floods, and in the aftermath, cooked on his barbecue non-stop for weeks, outside his ruined restaurant, feeding his community with help from volunteers.

Further information

Read more about Graeme's restaurant in Lismore, The Stockpot Kitchen.

Graeme's cookbook, Red Hot & Smokin’! was published by New Holland Publishers in 2019.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

This episode of Conversations deals with mental health, fire, barbecue, murder, epic life stories, origin stories, sauerkraut, Singapore barbecued duck, the Albany Snake Run, cooking, restaurants, feeding, single mum, aged care, aged care mistreatment, Lismore floods, adventure, vocation.