The Wellingtonian interview: Lois Daish

From New York to Kilbirnie

BY JOSEPH ROMANOS - THE WELLINGTONIAN

Noted cook Lois Daish talks about living in New York, running a restaurant and her favourite food.

Wellingtonian: You grew up in Roseneath, but as a young girl spent a couple of years in New York. How was that?

Daish: We lived on Long Island. My father worked for United Nations as the chief personnel officer. Sometimes we'd go to Manhattan. The buildings there were absolutely huge.

Wellingtonian: Did you fit in well at school there?

Daish: It didn't seem to be any problem, but my sister and I were always proud not to stand up and "put right hand over heart" for the national anthem, as was the ritual. They didn't teach handwriting. You were expected to pick it up. I didn't, at least not very well, and when I got back to New Zealand everyone else could write. I've never really caught up.

Wellingtonian: But you were actually a journalist for a while, weren't you?

Daish: In the 1970s I worked for a newspaper in the western suburbs. A friend of mine was the editor and I did some stories for her, mainly about town planning. I also convinced her a food column would be nice, so I did a few of those.

Wellingtonian: Were you already keen on cooking by then?

Daish: I was, but I was busy raising four kids. I'd done a bit of cooking at Downstage in the 1960s, when they served meals. Later I worked part-time at The Settlement, where the food was rather bohemian.

Wellingtonian: What was the first restaurant you owned?

Daish: I owned Number 9 in Bowen St. It had been Toad Hall, but Jeff Kennedy, who I'd worked for at Toad Hall, moved his restaurant up Plimmer Steps. We were at Number 9 for four years.

Wellingtonian: Didn't you also own the Mount Cook Cafe?

Daish: Yes, from 1984 to 89. We had some weird ideas with that place. I was influenced by having lived in America, and my partner, Jeff Kennedy, was taken with America, too, so we decided to have American food. We had burgers and steaks and fries. Jeff's then wife was a vegetarian, so that was worked in, too. For a while we even had the American flag flying, until an old RSA gentleman objected.

Wellingtonian: You're most associated with the Brooklyn Cafe. It was an unusual site for a restaurant, wasn't it.

Daish: It had been five shops and it required a lot of work to turn it into a restaurant. Because the road was so steep, our restaurant was on five levels, but it worked well.

Wellingtonian: What were you aiming at with the Brooklyn Cafe?

Daish: I wanted the restaurant food to be as much like really good home food as possible, not a separate kind of culture. So the food was simple and was cooked from scratch, not pre-prepared and reheated. We went for very simple presentations.

Wellingtonian: The ambience always seemed very good there.

Daish: It was a strange layout, and it was difficult serving, racing up and down, but there was a nice feel to it. There was quite a lot of carpet, so the noise didn't get up too much.

Wellingtonian: Were you in the kitchen or out the front?

Daish: When I ran it with Greg Williams, I ran the kitchen. Later I spent more time out the front. It's a balancing act. You want both areas to run well. I was lucky we had a really good maitre'd, Marc Weir.

Wellingtonian: You've done a lot of writing on cooking, haven't you? Books and magazine columns.

Daish: I have written four cook books and wrote a column for the Listener for 23 years.

Wellingtonian: How do recipe writers deal with the issue of plagiarism? That's been a hot topic lately.

Daish: Every recipe grows out of another. One of the interesting things about recipes is their history. I always liked to talk about the history of a recipe, to celebrate it. What you tend to do is get a recipe and add your own touches. With me, it might have often involved more butter!

Wellingtonian: Do you read a lot about food?

Daish: I have thousands of books on the subject. But these days I seem to just skim recipe books.

Wellingtonian: What food do you like cooking?

Daish: I don't mind what I cook, but I like my food to be appreciated. I cook for [her partner] Mike, who likes a fairly standard meal, some meat, some starch and some vegetables, so I'm happy doing that. I like to keep things simple.

Wellingtonian: Do you enjoy cooking?

Daish: I love the act of cooking, the craft. It's really interesting to see the effect of heat on food and all the cutting and chopping, and big pots of boiling water, dumping things in and fishing them out again.

Wellingtonian: What do you like about Wellington?

Daish: It's a perfect city. Each part has its own character. I grew up in Roseneath, overlooking Evans Bay, and then I lived in Ngaio for many years. Now I'm back in Kilbirnie. I feel like I've come home.