Thursday, April 05, 2012

NADIA'S KITCHEN LAUNCHED IN STYLE

Yesterday afternoon  at the trendy Tyler Street Garage in Auckland's down-town Britomart Centre foodie friends and foodie family of MasterChef NZ 2011 winner Nadia Lim gathered to celebrate the launch of her cookbook, Nadia's Kitchen, and what a stunning event it was.
The beautiful and talented Nadia was of course the star of the show as she moved easily among her guests chatting happily before addressing the audience.
We enjoyed beautiful canapes based on recipes in the book along with delicious wines from Martinborough Wines . Later after Nadia's address I managed to persuade her to let me have a copy of her notes and you will find them reproduced below.
Right - Nadia addressing the audience with her new website projected on the wall behind her.With her is Shaun Young, general manager - sales, retail and marketing for New Zealand King Salmon who introduced Nadia.
I have written previously about this truly appealing book that is filled with fresh, easy and delicious recipes. Included with my earlier piece was the recipe for Nadia's Marsala Chicken with Caramelised Pumpkin - do try it, I heartily recommend it.


Nadia's Kitchen Book Launch Address


Well, this is pretty cool.....18 months ago I would have never imagined attending my own cookbook launch. To write a cookbook is a dream I’ve had since I was 12 years old which was when I decided I would also have a cooking show called ‘Food in the Nude’. As a tribute, I thought maybe I should call this book by the same name – however my publisher Random House was honest and said they thought it might be a bit risky as it may only appeal to one particular type of audience. So instead, here we are with Nadia’s Kitchen.

Thank you all for being here to celebrate with me today. A huge thank you to Regal Salmon for being such good guys and sponsoring this launch, I just love working with them – they are such a fantastic, smart, innovative company, with the nicest bunch of people working there from the factory floor right up to top management! Thank you Martinborough Wines, who I must say have one of NZ’s best pinot noirs; we drink a lot of it – hopefully after tonight you will be too!  
As always, thank you to the super women at Pead PR, and Tyler St Garage for putting on this awesome do and putting together these canapés together inspired by recipes from the book.

The last 12 months have been a wonderful springboard for me, but I see this as just the beginning of my food career. A lot of you will know my background as a dietitian or nutritionist – nutrition is a field I’ve always been passionate about, however in my experience practising I found that traditional methods to get us to eat better haven’t been working, in fact the more nutrition information that’s out there, the more confused and misguided people seem to have become and our health isn’t getting any better either. I think it’s time for a new, fresh and inspiring approach to eating well, which is what Nadia’s Kitchen is all about. Nadia’s Kitchen is full of fresh, bright, beautiful and delicious recipes that get you to.....eat your colours (something my Nan drilled into me when I was a child), eat from the ground, sea and sky (instead of the factories), eat balanced meals (by serving ‘the perfect plate’), and making food an experience (rather than just scoffing it down as fuel) by encouraging eating together around a table (something Dad was very strict about when I was a kid) and thinking a little about the journey behind what’s on your plate.  I write about all these things in the book, which is divided into seasons – that was simply because it made sense to have it that way (I don’t have particularly green fingers or anything).

I think the book is absolutely beautiful – and that’s thanks to two incredibly talented and inspiring people – Tam West and Kieran Scott, and also Alex Landon-Lane who was a big help with the chaos of recipe testing and photographing. I had a blast working with these guys, we made a great team. Thank you Random House, especially Jenny Hellen and Rebecca Simpson, for the opportunity to produce, what I hope is only the first, of many books to come.
 
And most importantly, this would definitely never have happened if it weren’t for Mum and Dad who’ve grown my love of food from when I was knee high (getting me to try lots of weird and wonderful foods!), and Carlos who is by my side every step of the way and inspires me to dream every day.
Nadia’s Kitchen will be released tomorrow along with my brand new website www.nadialim.com – take a look.....

Here’s cheers to all of you, cheers to Nadia’s Kitchen, and cheers to enjoying lots of laughs, stories, great food and wine together tonight and for many more occasions to come!

Footnote:
Thank you Nadia for your words and your special book; thanks too to Regal Salmon and Martinborough Wines for a very special event. Goodness knows how many book launches I have attended after 40+ years working in the book world but this was one of the very best, a truly special event. I was delighted and proud to have been there.
Now Nadia get cracking on the next book!


And check out Nadia's new website also launched yesterday.



 The Bookman featured with Annie in subsequent story on the launch in Herald on Sunday, 8 April.




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