ELIZABETH HEWSON is a home cook, recipe writer, columnist, author, creator of the #SaturdayNightPasta movement and former head of creative at Australian hospitality group, Fink. Her new cookbook Home Food is out now.
We caught up with her to find out what she’s reading and take a peek at the cookbooks on her shelves.
MEET ELIZABETH HEWSON
What are you reading now, and why?
I’m currently reading Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld. Her novel, a romantic comedy, got me out of a reading rut back in January – I devoured it. With everything going on in my own world, I wanted something I could escape into. I read so much food writing for work and pleasure that I felt I needed to step sideways into another genre for a while. Sometimes the best reset is being transported somewhere completely different.
What were your favourite books as a child?
‘The Brambly Hedge’ series by Jill Barklem. I loved getting lost in that tiny, detailed world of illustrated kitchens and hedgerows. And Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. I was completely taken by the illustrations, but also the rhythm and flow of the words.
What did you study or work in that led you to food and cooking?
I studied PR and communications, but I ended up working with incredible food brands and restaurants. That’s where everything opened up for me. Being around brilliant, passionate chefs and producers made me realise I wanted to work in food. At the same time, working alongside restaurants showed me I didn’t have the stamina and resilience for a professional kitchen. I didn’t have the strength for that kind of extreme pressure. I loved cooking as a way to relax and unwind. So instead, I threw myself into studying a Masters in Food at University of Gastronomic Sciences. That gave me depth and context – history, culture, politics, agriculture. It shaped how I think about food far beyond the plate.
What’s one thing that’s a ‘must keep’ for you in the fridge or pantry that might be unexpected for readers?
A good-quality fish sauce. MegaChef is my favourite from the Asian supermarket. I use it constantly, not to make things taste ‘fishy’, but to add depth and umami to soups, ragùs, dressings, sauces. It’s my quiet secret weapon.
Can you tell us a bit about your new book, Home Food? What inspired it?
Home Food was written in a season of life that felt relentlessly full. Not dramatic, just the steady accumulation of work, children, dinner, washing, school notes, relationships. The everyday weight of it all. I realised the food I was craving wasn’t ambitious or complicated. It was honest. Familiar. Dependable. Somewhere along the way, cooking had started to feel performative – more like entertainment than sustenance. There was pressure to make it beautiful, impressive, perfect. And I felt tired by that. I wanted to return to a time when dinner was simply allowed to be dinner. Gentle. Reliable. Food you could trust at the end of a long day. The book is about the meals we actually cook when life is busy and imperfect. It’s about nourishment, emotionally as much as physically. It’s the kind of cooking that steadies you. The kind that holds you up when you’re tired.
Can you share with us a recipe from the book that’s perfect for a Sunday night with the family?
Sunday night, for me, is about comfort and grounding. I like to potter in the kitchen – nothing too complicated or that sends me into a spin – but something that sets us up for the week ahead. Ideally, it’s bowl food, something you can wrap yourself around on the couch. I’d choose the Smoky Brothy Bowl of Ham Hock, Potato and Greens. It’s nourishing and feels restorative without being heavy. Exactly what I want before Monday rolls back around.
What other cooks or chefs do you admire or have on your cookbook shelf?
I return again and again to the writers who shaped the cook I am: Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Maggie Beer, Stephanie Alexander, Bill Granger, Jill Dupleix, Nigel Slater, Diana Henry, Nigella Lawson, Marcella Hazan and Jamie Oliver. Their food has never been about spectacle. It’s about flavour, generosity and ease.
Closer to home, there are so many Australian writers I admire – Julia Busuttil Nishimura, Danielle Alvarez, Katrina Meynink and Alex Elliott-Howery. They all have their own approaches but cook with heart (and in real life!)
If you were hosting a dinner party, what would you cook for dinner and who are six people (living or dead) you’d invite?
I’d cook simply. Recipes that feel like home. We’d start with crudités and a homemade dip – my chickpea, rosemary and anchovy one from the book – something to nibble on with a drink while everyone stands around the kitchen.
Then pasta. I’d love to make everyone a small bowl of tortellini in brodo to set the tone. It’s my desert island dish.
For the main, a butterflied roast chook smothered in anchovy cream, laid over butter beans with radicchio tossed through at the end. Something that can cook away in the oven while we talk, filling the kitchen with that savoury, roast chook aroma.
Dessert is most definitely a self saucing pudding. But if I’ve run out of steam, really good ice cream with olive oil and salt, or honeyed pangrattato, or caramelised bananas.
Around the table: Nigella Lawson, British food journalist Diana Henry, Elizabeth David, authors Laurie Colwin and Dolly Alderton as well as actor and author Stanley Tucci. That feels like a table full of warmth, intelligence and appetite. I suspect we’d talk long after the plates were cleared.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Hewson is a master of all trades – a home cook, author, founder and creator of the #SaturdayNightPasta movement, book and product range, entrepreneur, brand-builder, recipe writer, and is columnist for The Weekend Australian Magazine.
Elizabeth’s hunger for sharing food and stories started back in 2013 when she wrote her first book, ‘Moving out…Eating in’, a cookbook for home leavers. Shortly after, she packed her bags for Bra, a small town in Piedmont in Northern Italy. There, she studied her Masters in Food Culture & Communication at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (also known as the birthplace of the slow food movement).
During a period of anxiety, Elizabeth found solace in the humble act of making pasta every Saturday night. In fact, she soon established it as her self-care ritual. Slowly, over the years #SaturdayNightPasta became a movement and, right across the country, people took to social media to upload photos of themselves making pasta and adding the #SaturdayNightPasta hashtag. What followed next was a book, Saturday Night Pasta recipes and rituals for the home cook, published in October 2020, and a food product range, launched in late 2022, which includes four pasta sauces and three dried pastas.
Elizabeth’s third book, Home Food, is out now.
Visit Elizabeth Hewson’s website here.
Follow Elizabeth Hewson on Instagram here.
Visit Murdoch Books’ website here.
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