\u201cI was really excited to get to do a cooking show again because obviously I feel most at home in the kitchen,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just very natural to me to be cooking something and talking about it.\u201d And in a cost of living crisis, she hopes her celebration of cooking with local, seasonal produce will resonate. \u201cRegardless of when times are good or when times are hard financially, you should always stick to the basics of good food sourcing: always eat local and always eat in season,\u201d she says. \u201cPlease, whatever you do, do not buy peaches in winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her other biggest cost-cutting tip is bulk cooking, which she says she regularly deploys for her busy household of three young boys. \u201cIt just saves you time and it saves you from having that dinner panic attack and then shopping for one specific meal,\u201d she says. Lately she\u2019s been doing a bulk slow-cooked lamb ragu with a cinnamon stick, tomatoes and wine. \u201cI\u2019ve nearly been overdoing it but I love it \u2013 have it with gnocchi one night, or have it with mashed potato and roasted carrots another night. It\u2019s one of life\u2019s great hacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if all of that has made you hungry, Lim has also generously dished up her deliciously rich life in television for us, including going viral with Leigh Hart and a secret KFC ad cameo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My earliest TV memory is\u2026 I grew up in Mount Albert in Auckland, and I have quite a clear vision of me watching our old TV, which was one of those very wide box TVs. I\u2019m the oldest, so I was an only child at the time, about three or four years old, and I remember sitting on the carpet with the afternoon sun streaming in, and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.<\/p>\n
The show I used to rush home from school to watch was\u2026 At high school it was Home and Away. I think it was the fact that they were teenagers, it just intrigued me. Although their lives were much more exciting than mine \u2013 they all had boyfriends and drama going on and I was a geek who didn\u2019t have anything going on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nadia Lim at home in Nadia\u2019s Farm Kitchen.<\/p>\n
My first TV crush was\u2026 Jamie Oliver. I was 12 years old when he was on The Naked Chef and I just loved how he was so enthusiastic and so excitable about food, because that was me \u2013 I was like the female version of him. I\u2019d never come across anyone who was so, so obsessed with food and I just completely resonated with him when I watched him. From that point on, my dream was to meet Jamie Oliver and marry him. Obviously that didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n
The TV moment that haunts me is\u2026 Straight after MasterChef \u2013 I was such a rookie \u2013 I agreed to go on Late Night Big Breakfast<\/a> with Leigh Hart and Jason Hoyte and I\u2019ll never get rid of it. It went viral, not just here but overseas. I\u2019ve been traveling overseas, and people have come up to me and said, \u201cyou\u2019re the girl from \u2018cook me some eggs\u2019 right?\u201d That will haunt me forever. Interestingly, a lot of people think that I didn\u2019t know what was happening, but that was actually about the 11th take. I obviously wasn\u2019t a great actress because we had to do it so many times, but it ended up being pretty convincing.<\/p>\n