Home cooking is at the heart of our food cultures and brings a comfort that can satisfy our physical and emotional needs. Join a panel of celebrated chefs and writers as they discuss their own home cooking, compare comfort dishes and consider the rich conversation between time-honoured ways of preparing meals and the sometimes-showy food culture of today. Featuring restaurateur Durkhanai Ayubi (Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen), prize-winning chef Rosheen Kaul (Chinese-ish), cook and star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table Asma Khan (Ammu) and culinary writer Alice Zaslavsky (The Joy of Better Cooking) in conversation with writer and comedian Jennifer Wong.
Durkhanai Ayubi (Australian)
Durkhanai Ayubi is an Afghan born writer and restaurateur, arriving to Australia in 1987. She is a lifelong Fellow of the Oxford University based Atlantic Fellowship, which seeks to rewrite global social inequities. She is author of Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen, published to global acclaim, winning awards in the UK and the US. Her work has been featured in publications globally, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and beyond.
Asma Khan (International)
Asma Khan is an award-winning chef, best-selling cookbook author and the owner of London's famed Darjeeling Express restaurant. She sits on the London Mayor's Business Advisory Board and is an Honorary Fellow at Oxford University. Asma is the first British chef to be profiled in Netflix's Emmy nominated Chef's Table and the first chef to be featured on Vogue's list of 25 most influential women. Best known for her all-female kitchen team and her commitment to social change, Asma is an unstoppable force in the hospitality industry and beyond.
Rosheen Kaul (Australian)
Rosheen Kaul is head chef at Melbourne’s Etta Restaurant, where she cooks a menu as culturally diverse as she is. Originally from Singapore, Rosheen spent her formative years training at prestigious restaurants Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Ezard and Lee Ho Fook. In 2022 she released her first cookbook Chinese-ish with Murdoch Books.
Alice Zaslavsky (Australian)
Alice Zaslavsky is the ABIA award winning author of international bestseller In Praise of Veg, kids' food bible Alice's A to Z, and cooking confidence unlocker The Joy of Better Cooking. She is a cookery columnist, broadcaster, and Vegelante. She's the longtime Culinary Correspondent for ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio nationally, and host of Saturday Breakfast on ABC Radio Melbourne. You'll find her on the socials as @aliceinframes.
Jennifer Wong (Australian)
Jennifer Wong is a Chinese-Australian writer, comedian, and MC based in Sydney. As a wordplay-loving food enthusiast, she's the presenter of ABC's Chopsticks or Fork?, a six-part series about Chinese restaurants in regional Australia. Jennifer is the curator of OzAsia Festival's In Other Words writers and ideas program, and writes regularly for The Guardian and SBS Food. Her first book, Chopsticks or Fork?, co-written with Lin Jie Kong, will be published by Hardie Grant in February 2024.
