In the past decade, Alice Zaslavsky has gone from high-school teacher to one of the country’s most authoritative and exciting media stars and tastemakers, with an award-winning cookbook, In Praise of Veg, regular TV and radio appearances, as well as a national food column, digital food literacy program and a unique product range in specialty stores nationwide. It’s not a quiet life for the 37-year-old raising a pre-schooler with husband Nick and splitting their time between the Mornington Peninsula and Melbourne. Alice is up early every Saturday as breakfast host on ABC Melbourne’s Weekends lineup, alongside Matt Preston. She is a regular culinary expert on ABC radio shows, as well as resident foodie on top-rating breakfast TV show ABC News Breakfast. In January 2021, Alice was handed the mantle of food columnis t for The Weekend Australian Magazine from David Herbert who held the position for 21 years.
With the support of government and industry, Alice created the education resource Phenomenom and innovative Nomcast podcast series to help nudge the needle on family vegetable consumption. The program continues to inspire people all over the world as a free resource on its own website and via ABC Education. Alice also spearheaded the creation of the Melbourne Food Bowl Virtual Farm, an interactive tool helping students to connect with regenerative agriculture practices. Alice hopes The Joy of Better Cooking will break readers free of the fears around being a good cook and help them find joy each time they step into the kitchen. The book has the same veg-forward flair and easy reading that people have come to love about Alice’s recipes, this time organised by level of skill and effort — from simple slap-dash to more challenging cooks and processes.
PAN CONFIT TOMATE
Here’s a play on a Catalan snack, pan con tomate or tomato bread, which is usually as simple as rubbing garlic and then tomato onto crusty bread (see Shortcuts). Here, though, the tomatoes are given a quick confit on the cooktop in oil and chorizo fat to make them a bit jammy and slicing and baking the Turkish bread slab the way we do here turns it into a giant tanned and crispy crostini. If you’re only making this for a few of you, save the
