Visiting Chef – Food the Way it was Meant to be
It isn’t often that a visiting chef has just completed a three-day tramping trip before donning their apron and holding a cooking demonstration. Jane Grover did just that recently however, by embarking on the Tora Walk the weekend before her evening at Mint at Martinborough, hosted by Sue Wilkinson. Jane was full of praise for the walk, the hospitality, the scenery and the food, all of which pleased her very parochial audience hugely!
A qualified chef, Jane has been running a cooking school in Sydney for the past three years, and recently published her first book, Naked Food: the way food was meant to be. This was her first visit to New Zealand, but her enthusiasm for Wellington and the Wairarapa suggests she may be back.
Jane is passionate about food and cooking and began her session by clearly stating the fundamental driver behind her style of cooking and the focus of her book. “I believe in cooking from scratch”, she says, “which was natural for my mother’s generation but not for mine, let alone those coming after me”.
For Jane, cooking from scratch means using wholefoods, locally grown and in season where possible, and from sources employing organic and biodynamic principles.
She sees her book as being “a bit like a manual”, and followed her own advice in the way she created it, by doing her own photo shoot and cooking all 97 recipes in the book in the space of 10 days. Her recipes are designed to be simple to do, to look good, and of course to taste great.
Jane used as much local Wairarapa produce as she could to create the soup and salad she prepared during the evening, including pumpkin acquired from a garden on the Tora Walk. Produce does not need to be perfect in Jane’s view, as she displayed a knobbly quince that she referred to as “more beautiful than a diamond ring”. As those of us who toil in our own gardens and orchards know, the odd and misshapen are often much better tasting than the perfect produce we see lined up so precisely in supermarkets.
Peter Croft, of Croft Wines, provided the audience of about 20 with excellent wines to match the two dishes that Jane prepared, and the evening finished with local cheeses served with quince and plum paste made by Adi McMaster under her Martybro label. Again, it was a highlight to have such high quality local products to sample.
Naked Food is a delightful book that is beautiful to look at, handle and browse through. The seven chapters of recipes are interspersed with chatty sections explaining Jane’s philosophy of food and cooking, and interviews with people involved in the business of growing and selling good produce. It’s a bit like Jane herself – bright and bubbly, straightforward and informal, enthusiastic, committed to her principles, and eager to share her joy in life, cooking and eating. Copies are still available at Mint to purchase and make great presents, especially from those living the good life to those who should be.
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