Q. What dishes are in your recipe repertoire?
A. I adore making summer salads, Thai curries, winter soups, slow-cooked dishes like lamb shanks and osso buco and to finish, poached fruits that always impress.

Q. Friends unexpectedly drop by and you ask them to stay for dinner. What do you cook?
A. I always have chicken thighs in the freezer, goat's cheese and proscuitto in the fridge, and tomatoes and avocado in a bowl. I'd marinate and grill the chicken and make one of my brilliant chicken goat's cheese salads.

Q. What's the most memorable meal you've eaten overseas?
A. I'd checked into a hotel in Singapore for a Qantas shoot and the crew hadn't yet arrived, so I decided to take myself off to dinner. It turned out to be fine dining which I hadn't really wanted but as soon as I saw the menu, I only had eyes for one thing — caviar. So I sat in this ridiculous restaurant, eating an enormous pile of caviar with the tiniest blinis I'd ever seen whilst drinking vodka martinis! I was in heaven!

Q. What's your favourite Friday night meal?
A. For Friday night at home, it's a whole baked snapper, garlic spinach and a glass of my favorite New Zealand pinot — simple and light.

Q. For a romantic night in or out, what's on the menu?
A. A romantic night out would have to begin with freshly shucked oysters and finish with some fabulous desert soufflé, but as we all know, what happens in between is not really about the food is it?

Q. Ever put on a dud dinner party?
A. Oh yeah! I was preparing individual apple flans for a dinner party dessert and I cut all the pastry rounds, prepped the apples etc., but put the pastry back in the freezer. After a disastrous main course (let's not go there) I confidentially did the final preparations to the flans before popping them in the oven. After having promised perfect desert in 10 minutes, I was struggling to figure out why they were still looking uncooked and unappetizing in 30 minutes. One of my good friends was more than happy to point out that it might have been advisable to defrost the pastry beforehand! Needless to say, its become quite the dinner party joke.

Q. What's your favourite aisle at the supermarket?
A. The refrigerated section — cheese, mozzarella, yogurts etc.

Q. If you could have five foods on a desert island, what would they be?
A. Bread, eggs, fish, spinach and caramel ice-cream!

Q. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A. Scrambled eggs.

Q. What's your favourite restaurant?
A. Bistro Moncur in Sydney. It's consistently good food with friendly efficient service and a great wine list.

Q. Have you ever eaten with anyone famous?
A. Yes, a few. But a highlight would be a dinner many years ago with Clive James and Barry Humphries. Can't seem to remember the food — I wonder why.

Q. What dish do you wish you could cook really well?
A. A clear but extra tasty chicken broth. I'm fine with soups but a clear broth with depth escapes me!

Q. What sort of food do you eat when you're stressed with a deadline?
A. At times like this, I normally don't eat so I skip anything with substance and munch on raw almonds and rice crackers.

Q. Does being creative in the workplace mean creative in the kitchen?
A. At work I like to be organised, controlled and leave little to chance and funnily enough this reflects in the way I work in the kitchen. I normally like to stick with a recipe with a little bit of inventiveness here and there. But as far as creating something from scratch you've got the wrong person.

Q. Do you think food and wine matching is over-rated?
A. Every now and then I might have a bite with some culinary connoisseur and enjoy the experience of this drinking this wine with that food, but to be quite honest there's nothing wrong with consuming a fine bottle of Grange with a good hamburger!

Q. What food would you quite happily never eat again?
A. Primarily most forms of legumes. I just can't do kidney beans.

Q. What's one ingredient you always have in your pantry?
A. Extra virgin olive oil.

Q. If you could invite three famous people to a dinner party, who would they be?
A. Bill Clinton, Madonna and George Clooney.