Food Show: Julie Biuso

Julie Biuso. Photo / Nicola Topping

Claim to fame?
Written 14 books and contributed to or edited another dozen. I started out as the head teacher of the NZ Cordon Bleu School before setting up my own cookery school, La Dolce Vita. Started in radio and television in 1984 and went on to have my own TV series on Italian food in 1989. I was on radio twice a week with Alice Worsley for 13 years, was the main food contributor to Cuisine magazine for 17 years, reviewed cookbooks on National Radio with Wayne Mowat for 10 years, was food editor of More magazine for 13 years, a weekly food guest on Breakfast TV for five years and have spent the past seven years working titles including Your Home & Garden and Taste magazines. That makes me about 103.

Influences?
My parents were great gardeners and I just took freshness for granted. I love growing things, so being in touch with where food comes from is really important. But our food was fairly typical of the time: roasts, rice pud, chops and fried onions and a weird thing my mother called "pitza pie" which had a pastry base, onions, peas, cheese and other stuff I can't remember. I worked in a Chinese restaurant when I was 13 and that first day, when I smelled garlic, chillies and ginger sizzle and hiss in a wok it was an absolute assault on my senses. I travelled to the United States, Britain and Europe at 16, and lived in London for a couple of years on mostly sub-standard food with a growing awareness that some people around me were eating extraordinary things. When I went to Italy in 1975 it was love at first bite.

Signature dish?
If it's anyone's birthday or there is a celebration of some sort, or someone has just got home after a trip, we have "welcome home chicken". Basically the chicken is rubbed with a cut lemon and smothered in butter, sunk in a puddle of chicken stock and cooked until golden and crisp. With crispy roast agria potatoes and a fresh-picked salad.

Always in the pantry?
Canned cannellini beans because I can hang a quick meal on them. Adobo chilli sauce. Dried Otago apricots and unsalted, unskinned almonds for a healthy snack. And in the fridge, a mountain of parmesan. The family is seriously (and expensively) addicted.

Friends are coming around for dinner on Thursday night, what will you serve?
At this time of year for a starter I often bake whole mushrooms dressed with herbs, garlic and a drizzle of olive oil because they are so fast to do and taste so good. Or we might simply have a stack of home-prepared ingredients and bruschetta followed by a decent-sized piece of parmesan or manchego. And my husband Remo's icecream to finish.
Guiltiest pleasure?
Butter and spuds. Mashed, jacket-baked, roasted, fried, sauteed - any which way, they taste so much better with butter.

Anything to add?
It's a job, but hardly a hard job. I've fed the kids well, brought them up with manners and still managed to dance on the table at midnight. Life is for living, not sleeping.

* Appearing Thurs 10.30am & Sun 2.30pm