Tuesday, February 18, 2014

March into Merivale 2014

Born to Cook has been this year’s March into Merivale theme. It is all about chefs and their memories which are as diverse as the chefs themselves and reveal the variety of influences and talent that lead them into Merivale’s award-winning kitchens. Dan Hong, for example, owes his cooking skills to the early influence of his mother Angie who would often spread newspaper and sit on the kitchen floor, cutting up whole chickens with a cleaver. For Palings’ Christopher Whitehead, it was the ‘Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook’ that first inspired his love of food and he remembers smuggling a torch into bed to pore over the pages of recipes. Felix’s Nathan Johnson recalls the English Summer and the unmistakable sound of the local ice cream van while fellow Brit Jeremy Strode reminisces about his daily childhood job of collecting milk straight from the source. Papi Chulo’s formidable duo, Patrick Friesen and Christopher Hogarth, might be joined at the hip now but their childhood food memories couldn’t be further apart – Tasmanian raised Chris loved to fish with his brothers and throw the catch straight on the BBQ while Canadian born Patrick had an unusual taste for butter, eating chunks straight from the fridge and earning the nickname Phat Pat as a result.