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As a soul woman chef, I possess a natural passion and a deep desire to develop innovative food using quality, safe, clean, fresh produce. Fuelled by my Sicilian heritage my heart always lies within the pages of Italian cuisine although my inspiration and expertise flows into creating a culinary journey or world food flavours. With my 14 years experience as a qualified chef and running my own organic restaurant for 7 years I have had the amazing opportunity of covering many hands on aspects of the food industry. As executive chef and business partner of Mondo Organics Restaurant in Brisbane’s, West End I was able to develop a restaurant, cooking school, catering and organic weekend market which aimed to inspire and create an awareness around organics, whole foods and natural clean, fresh food cooking.
Upon selling Mondo Organics in 2007 I have continued my passion for whole real foods and currently facilitate private, public and corporate cooking classes throughout Brisbane and interstate and now currently working as the resident chef at Grass Tree Cooking school, Deagon. Here my innate enthusiasm and natural teaching abilities allow me to share my knowledge and passion for excellent food and nutrition.
I now direct my own chef /Food educator business «Pure Food Cooking» with a focus and purpose to inspire and generate awareness in cooking using natural whole foods, and fresh organic produce to improve health, balance and life vitality. My unique style and a combination of simple, well-developed flavours is paramount in my cooking presentations, private cooking classes, demonstrations and recipe development. I also have gained a passion and love for small function and private catering, food styling and recipe writing for various food companies, magazines and journals including experience with product endorsements, product editorials, TV commercials, and advertorials.
One of my other passions is the development of my Pure Food School program where I work closely with early childhood, primary, and secondary Home economic teachers to facilitate cooking lessons bringing to the students a range of classes and food exercises with a focus on fun and creativity. These classes consist of learning about different foods and food tasting, basic knife skills, creating simple healthy recipes for the whole family, keeping inline with what children and young adults like to eat.
My public speaking abilities allow me to communicate to others an awareness of simple healthy cooking through both interactive cooking demonstrations and specific topics of discussion for corporate, private and charity sectors.
My aim has always been to align myself with clients whom I feel are creating a positive change in the food, health food and education industry. My goal in my cooking classes and public speaking roles has been to present attendees with simple healthy recipes and varied skills to recreate these dishes.
What I have discovered is a philosophy that dictates once people gain the skills to prepare healthy foods they also gain a conscious awareness to all aspects of their eating habits, including the effects and impact their decisions have on them selves, their family and their surrounding environment.
I am a long standing chef on channel 10s Ready Steady Cook & The Circle and have regular radio and TV segments presenting healthy cooking tips, recipe ideas and ingredient information. I have also finished writing my first cook book with Penguin/Lantern Publishing focusing on simple family recipes with a Sicilian/Italian flavour although I consider myself very confident in many world food themes and specialty dietary requirements including vegan and vegetarian. I pride myself on my integrity, professionalism, effectiveness and success in delivering the same high quality product in any given circumstance or situation.
My mission for the future in 2011 is to launch my cook book, commence my Sicilian Food Tours and further develop my cooking classes and catering business. I also look forward to involving myself in various charity and community works supporting women and families and teaching healthy cooking and lifestyle changes.
I am also furthering my TV career with my 6th year on channel 10 Ready Steady Cook and welcoming a variety of new cooking programs, branching further into recipe development, food styling and product promotions with several ambassadorships with local and international companies.
«I love the essence of clean, simple whole food cooking. There are still so many flavours that I have yet to explore. It is so wonderful to be a chef and to have available at my fingertips an amazing palette of different flavours and textures to create what I like to call little mouthfuls of flavour explosions.»
