By Corazon Miller
Her first memory of cooking was standing by her mother’s side in a Hawke’s Bay kitchen back in the 1950s, helping pour fragrant vanilla essence into a fluffy white pavlova mixture.
The little Jo would watch as her mother beat the whites into soft, perfect white peaks of the long-time Kiwi favourite. This image, paired with the taste of rubber as she would gleefully lick the batter off the rubber spatula, make up some of Jo Seager’s earliest culinary memories.
These days Jo has gone back to her country girl roots, living and running a successful café and cookery school in the inland Canterbury town of Oxford. Jo has made a life from her love of good food, turning it into a vocation and a way of giving to others.
This mother of two and grandmother of “one and a half” has graced our TV screens with her cheerful personality, waving whisks and pulling magical creations out of ovens. She has adorned many a bookshelf with the colourful pages of her easily made delectable food and has done the hard yards as a patron for Hospice New Zealand.
Jo modestly attributes her success to “being in the right place at the right time”. But as you chat with this successful business woman, it is evident that Jo’s journey to success was so much more than luck – it was the sheer ability to recognise an opportunity, take a chance and make the leap.
Looking right at home in the ambient setting of her little café Seagars at Oxford, adorned in one of her trademark black skivvies with a row of white pearls, Jo chats a mile a minute, painting a rather descriptive and, let’s be honest, tummy teasing tale of goodness.
Finding her own path
Jo says fame was never something she had aimed for. “A life as a chef and TV personality was never anything I had imagined. I had a good career as a nurse [first], I enjoyed it. I never dreamed of being on telly, but being a chef and sharing my knowledge is a passion.”
Even though her early memories of being an avid mummy’s helper in the kitchen would have seemed to have led Jo straight into a career as a chef, cooking was not to be the first cobblestone paving her path.
Instead her career began in New Zealand when she trained as a nurse before heading off on her big OE to London. She began by working as nurse on the British Heart research team, which travelled around in an ambulance investigating men and heart disease.
Having learnt a lot about nutrition and health through her work, she built on this by travelling around places like Morocco, nurturing a taste for a fantastic variety of food.
It soon became evident that a change in career was calling, so Jo decided to go to the Cordon Bleu School in London and then onto the gastronomic capital of the world, Paris, studying at the La Varenne chef’s school.
Home sweet home
But like many worldly adventures, there comes a time to head home, so Jo and a nursing friend of hers headed back to Auckland where they opened up a restaurant called Harleys, which Jo ran for five years.
“It was a huge success,” Jo says. “It got best restaurant in 1981 and 1982. It was around the time that Metro magazine started. It was a time of the foodie boom, it was all happening.”
While running the restaurant Jo met her husband of 20 years, Ross. They married and added to their family with one baby girl and one boy. In and around growing a family, even after Jo stopped working at Harleys, she continued to dabble in the industry, writing columns for North and South, writing cookbooks and teaching classes.
It’s a full-on life, but Jo says she never tires of the kitchen. “I love cooking, though not so much the clean up.” Cheekily she adds, “Which is why I love having the staff around me to do the cleaning.
“I do have a good hubby, I do all the cooking, but he is of the mindset; why have a dog and bark yourself,” she jokes. But, Jo adds hastily, her husband is a great help, “He is great with the cleaning and the tidying, he even did the bathing of the babies when the kids where small, while I cooked.
“I’m living the dream.”
On screen
Luckily for us Jo was, and still is, just as passionate about sharing her knowledge. She isn’t one of those chefs who never share. “I just loved the teaching aspect. I thought TV would be a good medium with a wider reach and larger audience.”
And so began an era of Jo waving her whisk on screen, showing us just how it should be done. But despite her polished on-screen presence, she says things in the kitchen aren’t always as smooth as they seem. “I’ve set fire to things while working for TV.”
But as much as Jo loved the TV aspect of things she says there was one aspect she didn’t enjoy so much. “People often ask me why I’m not on the telly more. I do have a lot of things that I have filmed that haven’t made it on the telly, but that is because I am not prepared to relinquish my independence to do the advertorial work,” she says. “I stand by my guns – I don’t want to be branded.”
Another on-screen trend she’s not a fan of is the recent fad of “master chefs” that seem to adorn our screens on a nightly basis. “I’m over the drama queen nature of the cooking shows,” she says.
Instead Jo loves to watch foodie programmes that showcase the adventure that being a chef can be. “I love the shows that travel and try new things, like the street food in Dubai; it is cool to try something new.”
Test-tasting success
Despite having numerous cookbooks full of her recipes, Jo says making things work isn’t always as simple as it seems. “It takes a lot of time to get it right. I just add a little bit here and there till I know exactly how it will work.
“Sometimes I just had one or two too many pinot noirs and I ended up with something just a little char-grilled.”
Jo’s own inspiration was the late American chef, author and TV personality, Julia Child. “I’ve met her and I love her. What I love about Julia Child is that she knows and understands food – you can read her cookbooks and just taste it.”
In Jo’s own kitchen she likes to keep it easy. “I like it simple – no more than five ingredients. In my own cook books I don’t like to have my recipes go over the cookbook page.”
She points out cooking doesn’t have to be an extravagant affair. If given a choice she would much rather have the classic, yet simple Italian cuisine than pretentious French fine-dining.
“Italian cuisine is quite simple; it can be just six tomatoes and some basil. Whereas the French cuisine that I learnt while I was in Paris is all about the cream and the camembert and the six quail breasts – it is food for the rich.”
Jo casually admits she does have a love affair with the Italians. “I feel Italian in my heart, I know I’m not, but I just love the Italian hospitality. Everyone comes into the home and gathers around the table. They have a philosophy of food born out of frugality. Using what they grow to feed everyone.”
Simple food is what Jo says the Italians do best. “It’s about doing less things better. The Italians know that they do it best with just a little fresh basil, tomato mozzarella and with a bit of drizzle of green olive oil. It’s one of the simplest dishes you can make to impress.”
Her love for Italy is what led Jo to take a group of students to get an authentic glimpse of the real deal, whilst simultaneously raising money for her other passion; Hospice New Zealand. “I get to go to Italy every year. I have to pinch myself while I am in Italy, and say yes I am at work, I’m not dreaming.”
Of course, in her travels Jo has had her fair share of “fine-dining”, tasting the likes of caviar, but she says nothing can beat the taste of simplicity done well.
“Crayfish with butter, a little bit of salt and pepper… BBQ lamb eaten in the high-country with your best mate and some crunchy bread that is soft and fluffy in the middle, with a little bit of chutney on the side… scallops, I just love scallops… anything kaimoana – I just love seafood.”
And the list goes on. “Ooohhh… nothing beats crushing fresh raspberries on the
roof of your mouth on Christmas day with icing sugar and cream – nothing can beat that feeling.”
Healthy titbits
It all sounds so decadent, but her philosophy on healthy eating is anything but. “Moderation – eat a little bit of what
you want.”
It is also about eating local, Jo says. Something she says the Italians have had in their country forever. “It is called peasant. The Italians know how to make do with the ingredients that are all around them.”
Local simplicity is something she tries to exercise in her own picturesque Seagars at Oxford café, where everything they serve is homemade from many local ingredients. Even the divine, creamy coffee plays the part of moderator, with its perfectly portioned cup that is not too big, not too small, and a decadent, small melt-in-your-mouth portion of fudge.
Healthy eating is something we as New Zealander’s should be able to do well, Jo says. “We have it easy with all the produce we have around us. We are the luckiest country in the world and I count my blessings every day that I get to be here in New Zealand.”
Some of the best advice Jo offers for those who like to potter around in the kitchen is precision. “Shoddy measurements give you shoddy results. A cup is a metric cup not an old cup with a crack in the side. The oven temperature needs to be checked with an oven thermometer,” she says.
“Salt and pepper and spice is also important, they aren’t bad things they are out there to make food taste better.”
To get a taste of Jo’s cooking or to take one of her classes go to www.joseagar.com
