CONTRIBUTORS

Behind the scenes

IT WOULD BE FAIR to say that Lucy Corry has an appetite for food. The experienced journalist — NZ Life & Leisure’s Taste editor since 2018 — says she quickly worked out there was delicious fun to be had in writing about cuisine for her daily bread. In recent years, she has co-authored the Ockham award-winning Hiakai: Modern Māori Cuisine and written the much-loved Burger Wellington cookbook. Her own debut cookbook, Homecooked, is beautiful, honest and funny, with an emphasis on using (and using up) real, fresh and accessible ingredients. In honour of our 100th edition, we thought some spotlight-sharing was in order. So here are five minutes with our clever food editor.

What motivates you to work hard? If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. I love the satisfaction of a job well

done — and the motivation of learning how to do something better. In journalism, telling someone’s story is a huge privilege; it’s important to honour it by getting things right.

If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what

would it be? Bread and cheese — because there’s endless scope and variety to be found in both. While wine is the obvious accompaniment, if I could only drink one thing, it would be tea. You cannot underestimate the healing powers of a good cup of tea.

What is your proudest accomplishment? That depends… but in 2019, I nearly burst with pride after winning an aioli-making competition in La Ciotat, a small French town between Marseille and Toulon on the Mediterranean coast. I know it’s not the Nobel Peace Prize, but it took quite a lot of courage to enter, and I nearly wimped out at the last minute because I wasn’t sure that either my French (or my aioli-making) would be up to it. I came back to New Zealand with a ridiculously large trophy in my luggage that reminds me to challenge myself more often. This year, I’m incredibly proud of Homecooked, a book I’ve long dreamed of writing. (And yes, the aioli recipe is in it.)

If money were no object, what would you do all day? Read, write, cook, run, garden, spend time with friends and family — all without an eye on the clock.

Aside from necessities, what could you not go a day without? Laughter, fresh air and exercise.

What makes you laugh the most? My family — especially my husband Glen and our daughter, Eve. We have a welldeveloped sense of the absurd in our household.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be? This is a hard one. If borders were open, I’d go back to France (where I spent most of 2019). Otherwise, I’d live in a fantasy Wellington where the wind blew just a little less often, the housing, transport and water problems were fixed, and the harbour water was a little less frigid.

How would your friends describe you? Empathetic, curious, funny, kind, often hungry.