Q&A with Martin Bosley – Martin Bosley’s
1. Recount your most forgettable dish or cooking moment
That would have to be a dish I produced for a Seresin Estate @ Waterfall Bay dinner. It was designed to be the cheese course in a seven course degustation. Goat’s cheese with muesli; everything about the dish should have worked . I thought it was a piece of genius. No one else shared my belief but didn’t want to tell me. We served it. I was excited until practically every plate came back barely touched. Someone actually said to me after the dinner ”what were you thinking…?”
2. Your 3 favorite recording artists are….
Lucinda Williams. Ryan Adams. Leonard Cohen.
3. Name your ultimate car and denim brand
Car and Denim in the same sentence?! Car brand is Mercedes. I’ve had an E320 for a long time now and I love it. Denim – I’m a Hugo Boss Texas Cut fan.
4. What’s your favourite cut of meat (and why)
Beef Cheek. It represents all that is good in the animal.
5. Your best holiday destination ever was….? Because…..?
France, 2000. I ate in three 3 Michelin starred restaurants over three days. Each one affected me in different ways, but the meal I ate at Michel Bras was the most seminal and emotional meal of my life.
6. Confess your guiltiest indulgence
I never feel guilty about indulging myself.
7. What’s in your fridge NOW
Lurpak Unsalted Butter. Milk. Cream. Tonic Water, free-range eggs. The usual array of opened jars of relishes and mustards. If you’re looking for food, forget it. I buy on the day for what I feel like eating. Oh – there are two packets of Duck Leg Confit in there as well, left over from last Sunday’s City Market.
8. If you weren’t doing what you’re doing now you’d be.…
A lot slimmer.
9. Tell us what food or food media trend you despise the most
I think its such a shame that there is so much syndication of food columns. We are more than capable of writing our own food stories. That and the lack of respect shown to restaurants regarding reviews. The rising trend of using ill-informed bloggers in mainstream media to write reviews is disturbing. Throw in ‘macaroons’ as well.
10. Describe, in 140 characters or less, your favourite day-off diversion
I take two days off a year. Boxing day and the day after, and I go trout fishing in the Hawkes Bay.
11. Who would you most like to dine with and why. Preferably pick a dead person. (We’re into resurrection).
Both of my grandfathers. I never really knew them.
12. What is the most influential book you ever read
Michel Guerard’s ‘Cuisine Gourmande’.
13. If you ruled the world, the first 3 things you would change/do would be….
i) Create more festivals around food.
ii) Make organisations like Monsanto responsible for their actions. They should be tried for crimes against humanity.
iii) Put in place a code of ethics / conduct for food bloggers around their behaviour in restaurants, and some checks and balances for what they write. Fact checking should be compulsory.
