As a Californian, now living in New Zealand with 20 odd years spent in the Caribbean in between, my cooking style has had a lot of different influences. After several years in other businesses, we finally came to NZ 9 years ago, and with no experience other than eating in a lot of them, we opened a cafe! Our friends thought we were nuts, and in retrospect, we were. We have now sold that business and are trying to figure out what to do next! Watch this space. . . I love to play with Asian inspired marinades/ ingredients - getting the blance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy just right.

I also seem to be drawn to fiddly foods - - home- made pastas, tortillas, filled won tons and grape leaves. My mother loved Mexican food, and definately passed the taste on to me. I always loved my mom' s enchiladas and tacos, and often whip up something like that quick for dinner. When I have more time, I make home- made Tamales. It' s time consuming, but worth it. We have a hard time getting decent whole roasting turkeys here in NZ, but there is nothing like spending a day preparing ' the works' for a holiday dinner. I recently catered for a group of 18 - 22 for 18 days straight.

I had prep support from the cafe ( they were able to make all the cookies, muffins, cakes, etc) but I single- handedly managed all the main dishes, plus the organization and ordering supplies. The group was so impressed they gave me a gift certificate and I had a real Sally Fields' moment: They like me!

They really like me! Serving things at dinner parties, not realizing that they weren' t things that everyone liked or had tasted before. I was shocked when an important client turned up for the lovely roast lamb and said he had never eaten lamb before! Corned Beef was another one.