Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
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her wellbeing selection of spices available that can be added to even the simplest of meals to give them dimension and interest. I like to experiment at home and Iain is always a willing guinea pig. Sourcing the best possible ingredients is a big part of what a chef does. How do you choose your suppliers? Supporting local producers is incredibly important and even more so now with the emphasis on reducing food miles. Fortunately in Cornwall we have quite a few small producers who supply the restaurant with excellent ingredients. We are surrounded by the sea, so fish and seafood are particularly good, but we also have excellent Terras Farm duck from Roger Olver, rare-breed pork from Sally Lugg at Primrose Herd, and I source free range chicken from Keith Whickett in Bude. There are so many artisan cheesemakers now as well. I have really seen the food scene grow here over the last few years. With regards to how I source, I need to know that production methods are ethical and sustainable. Provenance and traceability are extremely important to me. What do you consider to be your best creation, and what are the classics that you'll forever keep on your menu? The punters love my crab cocktail and I can't seem to take that off the menu. Over the summer its whole grilled megrim sole with brown shrimps and caper butter, as well. Both very classic dishes. I wouldn't say they were my best, but they sell incredibly well and are delicious in their simplicity. What's your regular comfort meal? A bowl of aromatically flavoured noodle broth, with anything from chicken, duck, pork, prawns or squash and plenty of seasonal greens. Sometimes I load it with chilli, other times I go for lime leaves or miso. You're stranded on a desert island. What five foods would you want with you? And what would you make? 76 | February/March 2012 | HER MAGAZINE • A Trio of Indian Game chickens – why three? One cockerel for breeding and two hens. They don't lay many eggs as they spend a lot of time broody, so with two hens I'd have better odds with egg production! • A breeding pair of large black pigs from the Primrose Herd to keep me in pork and pork products.\ • Kingston Black Apple trees for making cider and chutney. • A breeding pair of North Ronaldsay sheep (they love eating seaweed and would keep me in lamb and also milk for cheese). • Cavolo Nero – for the delicious dark leafy greens and then the mustard flavoured seeds. I think with this collection I'd be able to make all sorts of things. Being at the backdoor of so many exotic countries, has your curiosity of other cuisines heightened? I have always been interested in foods from other cultures and countries. I do a lot of research through books and TV programmes. Travelling to other countries further enhances my interest and cements the flavours and aromas of the foods that I may have read about. It's fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. There is still so much to find out about and I doubt anyone can ever learn everything there is to know about food in their lifetime. I love that; it's exciting and challenging. Have you tried to incorporate New Zealand produce into any of your dishes? Reducing food miles is paramount now, so it would be irresponsible to use ingredients from so far away. I like to incorporate elements of New Zealand- style cuisine, which is a fusion of cultures anyway. I source my ingredients locally if I possibly can. I did a New Zealand menu a few months ago and trying to find some equivalent ingredients was problematic. However, I managed to replicate things like Hokey Pokey ice cream, ANZAC biscuits and Lamingtons. Where do you go when you want to eat at a restaurant? We are still on the search ... however the local pub does a great haddock and chips.