French Toast

Published by Penguin NZ, 2006

French toast is a totally pleasurable insight into the sensual delights of France through the eyes and taste buds of Peta Mathias, television personality and food writer. The former owner of a restaurant in Paris, Peta knows how to get the most out of every minute she spends in France. Savour crusty breads and fruity wines, endless varieties of olives and mushrooms, and experience the open-armed hospitality of Peta's friends and hosts. Staying in apartments, chateaux, old churches and even the odd garden shed, Peta discovers how to choose the best produce available - and how to banter with local stallholders. Share her evenings spend in village squares, feasting and laughing the night away.

 

Essential reading for anyone planning a trip to France, French Toast is crammed full of information about travel, regional food specialties and culture. Written with Peta's trademark verve and love of life, this is as close to being in France as you can get.

 

Peta Mathias has recently established a cooking school in Uzes, Provence.

A Cook's Tour Of New Zealand

Published by Penguin NZ, 2005

Don’t just expect recipes in this book. It’s a culinary tour of New Zealand that celebrates an astonishing variety of the good things grown and produced locally. From olive oils to chicory-fed lamb; from boutique ice-creams to creamy cheeses and exotic fruit and vegetables, this is a book for all food lovers. From ten years of travels around New Zealand, Peta has collected anecdotes about people and places that she sprinkles generously among her innovative recipes.

Noodle Pillows

Published by Exisle Publishing, 2003

Peta Mathias's quest for the perfect pho takes her on a culinary journey through Vietnam, from crowded Hanoi and exquisite Ha Long Bay in the north, through the ancient imperial city of Hue and romantic Hoi An in the centre, to the food capital Saigon and the country's bread basket, Can Tho in the south. Everywhere she goes she walks the markets, meets the people and samples the local fare - in homes, on the street and in a variety of superb restaurants. She discovers a rich culture and an engaging people who, despite occupation by the Chinese and the French, have retained a unique cuisine that is fresh healthy and always overwhelmingly tasty.

Sirocco

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 2002 (Unfortunately out of print)

A wickedly funny, evocative, delicious travel book exploring the cuisine of Morocco and its influences on Portugal and Andalusia. Like the wind the book is named after, ideas, tastes and traditions blew up into Spain and beyond from North Africa, carrying in spices and delicate flavour combinations. Peta follows that trail and searches out the essence of Moroccan cuisine, learning how to make such local delicacies as warka ( a filo-like pastry), bastila (pigeon and almond pie), couscous and malawi (a fried pastry/bread dish that is eaten warm with honey or jam). Always ready to throw herself into local life, Peta stays with families and gets into their kitchens, sharing their feasts and rituals of tea drinking, Arab-style massages at hammams, and having your feet painted with henna. Come and sample with her such delights as lamb tagine with prunes and almonds or orange water in milk and follow her journey north through Portugal and Andalusia.

Insatiable

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 2000 (Unfortunately out of print)

During her colourful career as a chef and food lover, Peta Mathias has revelled in the primary produce and enticing dishes of many countries, as diverse and evocative as France, Brazil and Ireland, to name a few. She has collected numerous recipes over the years, exotic and local, simple and complicated, and she shares the very best in this book. These are the ones she has returned to over and over again. They are distinctive for their good flavours, texture, fresh ingredients and sound method of preparation. Peta doesn't believe in fast food, short cuts or using inferior produce. These recipes are too special for that, they're the 'culinary blood, sweat and tears' of her life. The ones she has 'loved to, wept over, travelled with, taught, filmed on television and cooked for friends and family'.
Quite simply, Peta is an insatiable cook.

Burnt Barley

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 2000 (Unfortunately out of print)

If Peta hadn't known of her Irish ancestry, her love of potatoes would have betrayed it. Peta always connects with a place through its food, and in visiting the country of her forebears she set herself a difficult task. But it didn't take long for Peta to find the world-class restaurants hidden up windy cobbled streets, to savour the delights of grand country cooking, high quality primary produce and seafood from sleepy fishing villages. She dances her way between such traditional fare as Guinness, barmbrack and black and white puddings and refined fusion dishes of roasted tomato and goat cheese charlotte with lentils and basil oil and cured wild salmon topped off with slugs of fine Irish whiskey.

In this wonderful account of traveling through Ireland, Peta searches for its gastronomic heartland, introduces us to her intriguing relatives, discovers her other love - music - is intricately intertwined with Irish social life and eating habits and spins tales both traditional and true.

Salut!

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 1998 (Unfortunately out of print)

The French live in a country so beautiful they have the most tourists in the world, in spite of their efforts to humiliate them - and they have the best cuisine and wine in the world. Or do they?
Follow Peta around France as she takes stock of French cuisine in restaurants, truck stops, farmhouses, castle moats and barges. Sample with her the recipes, the crusty bread and crustier waiters, a zillion kinds of olives and mushrooms and the open-armed hospitality of the people she stays with in presbyteries, apartments, huts and châteaux. Learn how to choose the juiciest chicken, the spiciest artichoke, and how to sass the stallholders at the marché. In the evening she'll take you down to the village square to feast, dance and laugh the night away
" A tour of France, friends and family where I was blown by the winds of work, festivals, love and circumstance" - Peta Mathias

Don't Get Saucy With Me, Béarnaise

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 1997 (Unfortunately out of print)

Peta Mathias is passionate about many things, but particularly about food. Presenting the popular Taste New Zealand segment on the TVNZ programme Town and Country meant that she could indulge this passion to the fullest. This is an entertaining account of her doing just that. Peta offers her unique view of the interesting people she met, the wonderful food she encountered, her travels around New Zealand and her experiences of working in Television

Fête Accomplie

Published by Random House (NZ) Ltd, 1995 (Unfortunately out of print)

A New Zealander opening a restaurant in Paris? Sheer cheek and blind determination lead Peta Mathias to fulfil her long-held ambition . . . rising from dishwasher to French chef . . . and a life filled with sensuous gastronomic experiences. The wonderful recipes Peta cooked during her extraordinary time in France are intermingled here with her lively account of the exotic French lifestyle and the colourful characters she encountered.

 

 

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 

 

 

 

Monin Chai Syrup Endorsed by Peta