I am girding my loins for my Marrakech gastronomic tour starting 12 May. Around New Zealand ten other excited people are packing and unpacking and repacking to join me for a week of passion, crushed rosebuds and falling pomegranates in a land where time passes on slippered feet. I have enjoyed an Auckland summer of my twice weekly Supper Clubs where we learn magical things like how to turn a salade Nicoise into a tart, how to network, how to eat on a floating terrace and how to laugh while trying to hide in the group photo. Thank you to all the wonderful Supperettes who have joined me over the Summer.

I've just finished the most dramatic, passionate, luxurious India textiles/fashion tour with the loveliest, interested and classy group. Once you've been to India, you are changed forever because you realise you have been seriously under-achieving in the ostentatious department. We saw the most beautiful clothes and bought dohars (summer blankets made from two layers of muslin with a layer of block printed cotton in between) – like sleeping under clouds. We bought shawls, jewellery, pointy shoes and embroidered kurtas.

I hope everyone had a good chill during the holidays. Melbourne at Christmas was wonderful. My family and I ate at some really really good restaurants – The European, Supernormal, Taksim Square, coffee at Marios and Albert's Wine Bar. Oh and the sparkling gastronomic paradise of the Victoria market. Stood in line for a croissant at LUNE. Took in the extraordinary exhibition of the dotty work of Yayoi Kusama at the NGV.

I am looking out my window at the huge Christmas tree that has just burst into brilliant red bloom – our wonderful NZ Pohutukawa tree – a true sign that summer is here. Pohutukawa are our coastal guardians and the red flower symbolises bravery, strength and resilience.  So having complained non-stop about the horrible weather in Auckland we are now finally happy in the heat and sunshine and girding our loins for the holiday season.

I'm back in Auckland hosting my Supper Club on Wednesday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes on the floating terrace. Nobody ever wants to leave the table after a cooking class because it is the centre of the universe, the place where we share stories and memories, drink wine and laugh. The childhood table is where we learn to socialise and communicate. My plates are very colourful and rustic – can’t bear white plates – and the tablecloths and napkins are flamboyant.