“Food, for me, is a constant pleasure,” says Nigella Lawson. “I like to think greedily about it, reflect deeply on it, learn from it; it provides comfort, inspiration, meaning and beauty as well as sustenance and structure.”

This engagement, this depth of feeling might well be what makes the difference between someone being a keen observer of some tasty things and the author of some very good recipes, and that person being a phenomenon in publishing, an internationally successful broadcaster, and a single-word synonym for good food, good taste and good times: Nigella.

It was with great pleasure that Melbourne Food & Wine Festival had Nigella Lawson to lunch at Fed Square in March 2022 and, over three courses and a conversation with her old friend Matt Preston, explored her challenges of the pandemic, the wonders of cooking for one, and the joys of getting out again into the wider world.

After all, as Nigella says, “Melbourne is the best medicine”.

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A memoir by Momofuku founder David Chang was never going to be tame. But even the expectations Chang has set with a career rich in subversion don’t entirely prepare the reader for Eat a Peach. 

Food, restaurants and cooking are central to the story, but they’re intertwined with Chang’s depression, anxiety and impulses to self-destruction.

On the eve of Eat a Peach’s publication and in a year that marks the 10th anniversary of his first visit to Australia for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, David Chang joins MFWF creative director Pat Nourse for a conversation that’s as frank as it is free-ranging. 

You can also watch the video recording of the conversation at mfwf.com.au

Eat a Peach: A Memoir by David Chang, published by Square Peg (RRP $42.99), is out now.

Beyond Blue provides free support, action and advice for anyone struggling with anxiety, depression and mental health. For help or more information, visit beyondblue.org.au or call 1300 22 4636.

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It might seem like a crazy idea, but what if we ate our way out of our invasive species problem? Could we turn pests into a new source of food? Are we game enough to?

Artist Kirsha Kaechele of Hobart's MONA explores these very questions in her project Eat The Problem, inviting artists and chefs to contribute recipes for everything from rabbit to cane toad to uni. Shannon Bennett, Peter Gilmore and Heston Blumenthal are involved, alongside artists Marina Abramovic, Tim Minchin, James Turrell and more. Their submissions have been compiled by Kirsha in the gorgeously-designed Eat The Problem book and an exhibition of the same name, shown at MONA in 2019.

Get a taste for our problem species in this conversation between Kirsha Kaechele and Jill Dupleix, recorded live at the 2019 Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.

For more, visit http://mfwf.com.au 

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