Market Lane Coffee: Can you tell us about your daily coffee ritual?

Pippa James: I love the ritual of making a pour over coffee. I never thought I’d be one of those people, but I’ve come to totally love it!

I have a Kihara porcelain pot from CIBI, which comes as a set with a pour over cone. It’s so nice to make coffee in. Making a pour over is like meditation – it’s the only thing to focus on at that moment. I love the care that Market Lane takes with their sourcing and roasting, everything they do is so beautifully done. So I love trying different coffees and taking time to sit with the aroma and flavour each one offers. A little moment of happiness at any time of day.

Michael drinks coffee with milk, so I use an espresso blend and brew his coffee in a plunger. At weekends, we usually get pastries from Loafer in North Fitzroy to enjoy with our coffee.

What's your favourite spot in your home or the world to enjoy a delicious coffee?

Michael James: I didn't grow up with coffee. I’m from a strong-tea-drinking family and it's only since we’ve lived in Melbourne that I’ve grown to like coffee. We have such a variety of world-class coffee roasters and brewers in this city.

When I go back home to Penzance in Cornwall, I love nothing more than a morning walk along the prom, ending with a coffee at Lovetts in Newlyn. It feels special to be back home enjoying a well-sourced and made coffee, watching the world go by – a combination of a nostalgic nod to my past and a reminder of my present life in Melbourne. 
 

Can you describe your perfect day off in Melbourne/Naarm?

Michael: My perfect day off after school drop-off is going for a long walk around the Yarra Bend Park and enjoying nature. I am very grateful for this little oasis in our area. There are one or two spots that we discovered in lockdown that can feel like you are in the bush. I have spotted a seal, platypus and wallabies, as well as water dragons, lizards and snakes. It’s a welcome relief from my busy inner-city life.
 

You've worked together for a long time. Can you tell us about your journey together and the values that drive you and your work?

Pippa: We met working in a 2-Michelin starred restaurant in London, and both worked in restaurants for many years before turning our focus to baking. So, we’ve been feeding people for many years. But we still love seeing someone’s face light up when they bite into something wonderful.

Ultimately, we want to empower people to eat better – for their health, for pleasure and also for our environment. We gently encourage people to consider where their food comes from, how it is grown or prepared, where their money ends up and the amount of food they’re wasting. “Big Food” is responsible for a lot of bad things – deforestation, carbon emissions, terrible health outcomes for millions of people, biodiversity loss, devastation of local communities. It’s very scary but we all have power in our wallets, and we can create so much joy through the sharing of food.

I guess spreading joy and doing good is what we’re about.

You've recently launched Urbanstead (and Jason and Fleur from Market Lane attended one of your classes)! Can you tell us a bit about this venture?

Pippa and Michael: We established Urbanstead with the aim of sharing skills and information about food and food systems. The name is a play on Homestead, which describes a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. A homesteader grows their own fruit and vegetables, milks their own cow, has chickens for eggs, and perhaps some other animals for meat. It’s very romantic but it’s not realistic for many people. Most people now live in urban environments, and can’t do all those things. But if we each build some skills and educate ourselves, we can create communities that are more resilient to the challenges that are coming.

We’ve written three cookbooks together, sharing recipes as well as stories of producers we love and the value of food in a richly lived life. We offer baking classes based on recipes from the books as another way to share what we love. When people come to our classes, they get so excited that they can transform simple ingredients into such deliciousness. It changes the way they think about food, and they go away feeling more confident. We had an absolute blast with Fleur and Jason at our Sweet Seasons baking class!

We have some pop-ups in the pipeline and are very much looking forward to those. Who knows where this journey will take us!

We are loving your new book, Sweet Seasons. Can you tell us more about it?

Pippa: Thank you! Sweet Seasons is our most personal book, I think. It was so much fun to delve into recipes from our very different childhoods and right through our professional careers. The book is an exploration of seasonal baking in a broad sense: of course we bake with produce that is local and in season, and we also recognise the seasons of life, as well as cultural markers throughout the year. So there are recipes for when you have time to slow down and create a bake of many elements, and those for when you need to knock out something special in a hurry. There are chapters of basics to build from, childhood memories through food, food to share far and wide, and recipes to make the most of seasonal produce gluts.

Every recipe has suggestions for adaptations so you can change things up depending on what’s at the market or in your cupboard. We had an amazing team to work with on this book, and I think that joy and creative collaboration shines through.

What are you most excited about at the moment?

Michael: I'm looking forward to hosting more classes in the new year and sharing our knowledge of baking, ingredients and sustainability. We aim to cover a broad range of baking, from sweet to savoury and sourdough baking. We love to share our knowledge about baking and sourcing and building community through food.