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Judith Cullen’s |
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Cooking classes, tours and books |
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About Judith |
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Let me tell you something about myself and explain my transition from teaching Home Economics at Kaikorai College to doing the many exciting things you are going to read about in the following pages.
Looking
back over the past twenty or more years, I can honestly say that choosing
food, and deciding what to do with it, has always excited me.
One
of my fondest childhood memories is growing up in a family home with a
fabulous vegetable garden. At the time I was aware of planting, tending and
harvesting seasonal ingredients but unaware of how it would become such an
integral part of my life. My father’s plentiful vegetable garden
was planted in neat orderly rows and he would spend long evenings tending
and hoeing. My sister and I often picked peas for dinner, eating as many
as we brought inside. Dad supplied the family with a huge variety of
vegetables, rotating his crops, using the boundary fences for growing
runner beans and the spare ground for wandering pumpkins. Onions were his
favourite. Once they were round and bulbous he would bend the tops over to
stop the growth and leave them to dry for what seemed like weeks. The
appreciation of freshly harvested vegetables, and the flavoursome depth to
their sweetness, after months of maturing, often underground, has
influenced me in a way my father probably never imagined. Dad’s
vegetable garden has been one of the major influences in my life choices. After teaching Home Economics at Kaikorai College for eight years, in 1985 Philip and I opened “Partners Cafè” in Dunedin. Partners was the first of the cafè style eateries in Dunedin. For the next 8 years we led a hectic life. I was at the cafè each day and available for outside catering working with fun, hard working students of which Dunedin has a never ending supply. Phillip helped while completing a commerce degree and organised Saturday morning brunch in the cafè. During this period we had three children and learned to be extremely efficient with our time. In 1992 Hannah arrived. Running Partners was still a thrill, however as our children grew our focus changed - our life had different needs and in the early 90's cafès were opening up weekly. We sold Partners in 1993 on Hannah's first birthday. I thrived on the excitement and achievement. I still fondly recall the thousands of chicken and Kumara pies I baked at partners but don't miss washing bags of tea towels every night nor the constant cleaning.
Phillip was offered an exchange to Bristol, England, for a year, so we swapped jobs house and car and had a wonderful years experience living, working and sightseeing in the west country of Britain. During that year we toured Europe. It was our first serious tour and travelling with three children aged 8, 5, and 3 was a challenge in itself, but very rewarding. Italy stole my heart. Now I return, usually twice a year. I think my determination to return to Italy stems from those days when we had no money but managed to visit galleries, museums and children's play grounds. Arriving back home we needed to give our growing children the time they deserved, but not wanting to relinquish my teaching and cooking skills I decided to create home cooking classes.
Classes started on Sunday afternoons with the girls who worked for me as students who by now were young professionals. It was fun! I hand wrote the recipes, they supplied the wine and they wouldn't go home!!! It soon became obvious that my classes were creating huge interest. I live above the beach at St Clair in a characteristic old two storied home with my husband Phillip and teenagers Matthew, Richard and Hannah. My classes take place in the kitchen and I work from an old butcher's block overhung by a mirror. Everybody always ends up in the dining and living rooms, sipping a glass of wine and talking about what they are going to create for the next dinner or to feed their family. Running cooking classes in your own kitchen is an unusual disruption to family life. It often means homework and family meals take place upstairs - and then the family join us after class for a taste of the evening's menu before helping me clean up! We are a great team! As our children have grown they all learn to prep and become my kitchen hands on class nights - gaining a few skills along the way.
I
was soon creating Monthly Menus, Christmas Menus, Culturally themed menus
and picnics and brunches, which led to my first cook book – Judith
Cullen’s Cooking Classes, published in 2004. To me, the kitchen table is
the most valued item of furniture in our home. It is a place for the
family to not only eat together, but for homework, a chat over coffee or a
glass of wine while dinner cooks, a casual meal with friends, and cooking
smells invade and hit you with a powerful sense of anticipation. My second
book, "Dinner in a Basket, Judith Cullen cooks from a market" will be available in New Zealand in October
2007. You can read more about
both my books at my Books page. A
few years ago I was invited to co-host my first tour to Italy, enabling
people from New Zealand to encounter not only the culture and traditions
of Italy, but also the cuisine and produce on a very personal level. My
passion for Italian food, countryside and history arose over a decade ago,
and thus I was presented with the perfect opportunity to indulge my love
of Italy, her people, and her marvellous cuisine. I
co-host two tours to Italy every year providing comprehensive insight into
Italian life, lifestyle, art, history, culture, food and wine. My tours
cover Italy from the toe of Sicily to the Alps, with three different
itineraries which you can read about by selecting my Italian Tours page.
My tours are now approaching their fifth year, so success speaks for
itself – a variety of cultural, historic, village and vineyard visits
interspersed with personally meeting farmers, growers and producers of so
many exemplary Italian ingredients. My 2008 Tour program is now available
– you’ll find details for bookings on my Tours
page. At home in St Clair, which has a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean from where we can see the children crashing around in the surf, Philip and I have a small potager-kitchen garden. It provides us with artichokes, fennel, garlic, rocket, rows of parsley and loads of lettuces and zucchini. We have topiaried bay and rosemary trees, and espaliered fruit trees, including my favourite, quince. Using the freshly picked vegetables, and drawing my favourite equipment from the cupboards, dinner is often created from ingredients around us. It's not unusual to hear a comment like "Watch out, mum's surfing the fridge!"
There is nothing we like more than strolling around our garden in the early evening with a glass of wine. Time has to be flexible - kids today have a wide range of activities at all times of the day and night - evenings can become frenetic with friends, loud music, practices for sport or ballet and the homework still to be done. Sunday is family dinner night in our house and we gather family members, including my mother, and all the nieces and nephews at Dunedin University or Polytechnic. We always sit around the table and it's amazing what you can learn over dinner discussion from their great conversation. Food
is the catalyst for so much of what we do, and how we live. For me, there
is no greater joy and reward for my practical skills, or my creativity in
the kitchen, than sitting around a table eating a fresh home cooked meal
with my family. My
personal philosophy is to create interesting and uncomplicated recipes for
people to cook at home using each season's fresh flavoursome local
ingredients. Enjoy
...................Judith
Judith
Cullen 18
Cliffs Road, St Clair, Dunedin NEW ZEALAND Phone
64-03-4558381; Fax 64-03-4552165; Mobile
64-021735617 |
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