Clearly, we must all learn to laugh in the kitchen. Beloved cook Maggie Beer is back on home turf in Sydney this weekend, demonstrating not so much the finer arts of fine cooking but the overwhelming importance of making cooking fun, as well as delicious, sociable and healthy.
The Good Food & Wine Show at Darling Harbour’s International Convention Centre has a chef’s lunch on Friday and the Great Australian BBQ cooking demonstrations on Friday morning, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and afternoon, all copresented by Maggie and fellow celebrity chef Matt Moran.
Maggie was on the line from the Barossa Valley.
INTERVIEW
It must be daunting to demonstrate cooking live without the option of retakes? You know, we never did a retake on The Cook & the Chef! We just pretended the cameras weren't there and just cooked. There is the added pressure of having a lot of people live but I don't care if I do something a bit wrong because then I can admit I've done it and show how I can fix it up. I've never worried about being wrong!
I remember once I was doing an event with Stephanie [Alexander] and she turned the hotplate on for me but I didn’t realise she’d turned it up to full! I burnt the sugar so badly and you know the smell of burnt sugar! And what it does to the pans!
I remember one time I had an apprentice helping and I had a large casserole pot in the oven and I had the oven off at the beginning of the day – it was just there for storage to make it easier. Anyway, unknown to me she’d put it on to heat and I went and pulled it out and burnt myself so badly I had to spend the rest of the demo with my hand totally immersed in a bucket of ice water!
You’ll always have people watching and learning from quite a few different levels of experience and ability. Yes, you always hope no matter what that you can share some sort of tip that will resonate with someone regardless of their level of experience.
But sometimes it's just about the flavours and different ways of utilising ingredients that will spark with people and they’ll go away and try that. It doesn't have to be something they've learnt in terms of how to do something but what to put together with what, you know, ideas to lead to other ideas.
What sort of a team will you and Matt make together on stage? Rapport between the two people on stage is important, especially if they can tease each other and help each other. It’s the ability to go with the flow that must be inherent in everything you do on stage. I’ve actually not cooked with him on stage before but I know he teases me mercilessly in such a really warm and friendly way. It just makes me laugh.
What’s your weakness in the kitchen when you’re under pressure? I never cut myself, but I'll burn myself! And if there’s a bit of pressure I don't swear but there is one word I do use when I’m really under pressure – not swearing like some people swear – but I always know when I'm going to say it so I try to change the middle letters mid-sentence!
Pressure is not necessarily a bad thing. It can release the adrenaline and sort of fuels the best cooking. And the pressure will be on Matt this time. He’s got three recipes he’s doing and I’ve got just the one.
Yes, your famous dried-apricot pavlova which my partner and I have done so many, many times. How long do you leave the pav in the oven with the door ajar to finish its cooking process? I’d leave it there for about an hour but of course this weekend I’ll have one already prepared beforehand – and the magic of television comes to the stage! So many people are frightened of cooking so it's sharing the little things that make a big difference to our confidence levels. That's why I'm doing it. And I want to talk about using Australian dried fruit and how beautiful it is, and how different it is.
What’s the best way to get confidence in the kitchen? By doing it! Having a go! No point getting uptight, just know that if you do something wrong you find a way to fix it, or you do it again properly, or you do it better next time. Feeling confident comes from practice and not being stressed. Whatever happens, go with it and enjoy the moment. Gosh, that’s simple isn’t it!
- goodfoodshow.com.au/special_guests/maggie-beer