A Week Down the Kate Reid Rabbit Hole

Sarah Barnes — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 10:41:28 GMT

This week’s rabbit hole was Kate Reid, aka @ms.lune.

Last weekend, my sister sent me a podcast she thought I might find interesting.

Well… in seven days, I consumed three long-form podcast interviews, including ABC Radio’s Conversations and Straight Talk with Mark Bouris, an episode of Australian Story, a couple of fascinating YouTube interviews and Kate’s entire audiobook…Destination Moon.

The audiobook alone is 11 hours and 36 minutes long... I mean… I’m supposed to be running a business. Who has time for this?

But this is what I do.... I am a curious beast.... I want to know more.... I want to learn from the best.

This rabbit hole was twofold.

Kate’s story kept me utterly captivated. Seemingly so simple, but complicated at the same time... and the distraction… all those hours of consuming… stopped me from spinning my wheels in the daily grind.

I’m not sure whether that was because I’ve been feeling stuck or because I simply needed a mental break from the day-to-day... it wasn’t necessarily the success of Lune that held me there.

Although I love baking, I wasn’t captivated simply because Kate built a croissant empire. Nor was it only that she travelled to Paris to learn from one of the best bakers in the world… although I would absolutely do that.

Lune

Actually, I have done versions of that throughout my life. I’ve landed several jobs by approaching people who weren’t advertising a position and telling them exactly why hiring me would benefit them. I’ve never been particularly frightened of asking. The worst they can say is no, and then you’re exactly where you were before you asked.

Kate and I also share a love of Formula 1. I love the pace and precision… ironic, given I consider myself more scrappy than precise. Maybe it’s the idea of flying by the seat of your pants at 300km/h! I love the strategy and, if I’m honest, the people-watching too. So that was the easy way into her story.

But it was Kate’s openness about anorexia that shifted something in my understanding. My previous view of the condition was embarrassingly simplistic. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I probably thought, “Why can’t someone just eat more?” Her story helped me understand that, in her experience, it wasn’t driven by vanity or simply wanting to look a certain way. Kate describes herself as a numbers person who became consumed by measurement, control and constant improvement.

Better than yesterday...then better again tomorrow...that mindset felt uncomfortably familiar.

I love processes and I love efficiencies. I’m always looking for the next improvement. I can become completely absorbed by something and keep pushing until I’ve solved it.

I’m not comparing my experience with Kate’s illness. I’m saying her honesty helped me recognise how a characteristic that can drive extraordinary achievement can also become destructive when it turns inward and takes control.

That understanding left me more empathetic than I was before....and isn’t that one of the best reasons to tell our stories? Someone else may finally understand something they previously judged from the outside.

Kate’s memoir jolted something inside me.

Everyone has a story.

However your story comes out, if it ever comes out, you may think it’s insignificant. You may think your world is boring. You may think, “I can’t write. I failed English at school.” You may think you don’t have the time.... or… how embarrassing if someone actually reads MY story?

But I accidentally started writing to my email list over at Hairpip in a semi-vulnerable way, and the number of people who wrote back and said, “We want more”…

I mean, really? Writing is not for me. How could it be?

But then there is this voice in me. It has been there for just short of 20 years, after a visit to a psychic in Mullumbimby.

She told me writing would bring me a great deal of pleasure and contentment... I didn’t believe her because, like I said, I flat-out failed English....not because I didn’t like English...school simply didn’t excite me. That’s probably true for many people, but it doesn’t have to be that way… although that’s another story.

Why would I put effort into something that didn’t light up my world?

Over the years, I assumed this writing premonition would eventually take the form of a cookbook... I loved cooking, and I can safely say other people loved my cooking too. So it seemed obvious that the piece of writing destined to fill my cup, in more ways than one, would be a gloriously delicious and visually inviting coffee-table-esque cookbook.

Well, that hasn’t happened.

My recipes are still firmly wedged inside a messy, overflowing folder. Most are written on the backs of envelopes and random scraps of paper.

You could probably track my life through those scraps alone.

There are complimentary notepads from hotels in Paris and real estate agents in Brisbane. My granny’s beautiful 1920s-era cursive writing on parchment. My bulky and clumsy 12-year-old printing from home economics during my boarding school days. And so many… SO many… pages I flippantly tore from the glossy magazines I used to subscribe to.

They’re all still there, like a time capsule.

So, I’ve started....I started today....I’m not sure how it will continue, whether it needs a purpose or if this Substack will stick around...but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s starting things.

I’m a doer. I don’t overthink too much. I just get on with it.

I know there may be consequences along the way, but I’ll deal with them if and when they arise. I’m a good problem-solver. I love taking something that has become complicated over time and making it simple again. I’m always trying to improve on the last attempt.

I strive for done, not perfection.

And this is me… starting anyway.

If you’re curious to see where this goes… subscribe and come along for the next rabbit hole.

If you fancy joining me down the Kate Reid rabbit hole…

If Kate’s experience with anorexia brings anything up for you, support is available through the Butterfly Foundation.

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