Amy Luttrell’s cookbook My Tasmanian Menu reads like a love letter to the state’s producers.
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Published just before Christmas 2017, Ms Luttrell’s book is divided into Tasmania’s four seasons, with producers like Lee’s Orchard, Ashgrove Cheese, Hillwood Berries, Twelve Acre Wood, Tasmanian Flour Mills, Tasmanian Gourmet Sauce Co, Spring Bay Distillery, Tasmanian Truffles and 41 South Tasmania featured within its pages.
The seasonal nature of the 97 recipes within the cookbook meant it a year for Ms Luttrell and photographer Phillip Kuruvita to produce.
“It’s laid out over the four seasons of Tassie so it took 12 months to get the four seasons in,” Ms Lutrell said.
Many of the recipes were developed around the products, but there were several that were firm family favourites.
“With 41 South I had come up with a few recipes I would use if I had a slab of their salmon. The recipes I’ve got in there are what I would’ve done,” she said.
“There’s a lot of bread recipes in there because I make a lot of my own bread and they are recipes I know off the top of my head so they were easy to jot down. Other recipes I had trialled quite a few times.”
This cookbook was a dream of Ms Luttrell’s long before she joined the MasterChef program in 2015, but her performance on the show helped firm up the project in her mind.
“I didn’t think it would be something I was really able to afford to do but then after MasterChef happened I knew 100 per cent this is what I wanted to do now and I had a an avenue to be able to do it,” she said.
As self-published author himself, Mr Kuruvita mentored Ms Luttrell through the publishing process while also capturing the food and lifestyle images she wanted to include.
“I had quite a clear picture in my mind of what I wanted the book to look like and feel like. I wanted it to be emotive, Tassie focused and have really beautiful images and I feel like I’ve achieved that,” Ms Luttrell said.
“It was really handy having his expertise on that as well as the photography. It’s nice I’ve got all this photography of friends and family in the book too.”
My Tasmanian Menu also includes a message from MasterChef host Matt Preston.
“The guys at MasterChef always wanted us to succeed and do well with whatever we chose to do. Matt ad a look at the book at the draft stage and popped a message in there from him and the boys, which was really nice,” Ms Luttrell said.
While the cookbook has been a longstanding labour of love, Ms Luttrell produced it between studying education at the University of Tasmania, hairdressing at Sage and raising her 20-month-old son Rory.
Another baby is due to arrive soon so she is taking some time off from the kitchen, but has not ruled out a return to one-off food events.
“I’d like to take a step back and be a mum for a bit. The pop-up dinners were a lot of fun and I quite liked doing that because it was a one-off thing; I wasn’t recreating the same menu every night,” Ms Luttrell said.
My Tasmanian Menu is available at www.amyluttrell.com.au, Sage hair salon or through the producers featured within its pages.